Parallax
by Pienuniek
Summary: They're equals, strengthening each other, would it be too much to ask if they could live a quiet existence? Apparently it is, the sequel to Twilesque. Follow them into the supernatural world's trials and tribulations. AU, mating connection story.
1. Chapter 1 What Is and What Was

**Disclaimer: everything Twilight belongs to Stephany Meyer, I just borrowed her characters and spun my own story. No copyright infringement was intended.**

 **Yes, I'm back. It took** **me** **longer than anticipated to finish this instalment of the trilogy. As promised it's completely prewritten and will post in weekly increments. Where Twilesque dealt with all things human, Parallax will deal with the vampire world. I hope that everyone will enjoy the labours of my imagination.**

 **Thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear for being my rock, even when the characters stopped talking to me and a couple of imaginary bank directors stopped the flow of the story; needless to say they were unceremoniously hacked from the storyline. The second person who deserves thanks is Chandrakanta for finding time in her busy schedule to weed out my mistakes. The banner of this story was made by Bubbleybear and myself.**

 **Enjoy reading, Pien**

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PARALLAX

Chapter 1 What is and what was

EPOV

Bella stood at the bow of the boat as an avenging angel, her eyes on the horizon. She looked magnificent. My mind wandered over everything we had done since Italy. We had actually worked apart a lot. She had been busy helping Esme get out of her funk. Our link was a godsend; we could confer even if she was in Forks and I was in Seattle. And we had to do that a lot, because I had been to Seattle a lot. I had to go to manage the money, or so Bella thought. In reality I had been planning our honeymoon. I had bought the island near Malaysia, then I had contracted the build of our accommodations. We needed great accommodations; to power those and everything in it we needed solar panels and wind turbines. I ordered a little harbor on the side of the lagoon, and bought a great motor yacht. Next on the agenda was hiring a local contractor who would build everything I wanted, within my timeframe. I ordered the materials myself, although under an alias with an architectural background.

I found a reputable firm that had fallen on hard times; because they absolutely refused to interact with corrupt government employees, their building licenses didn't come through. They had enough clout still to have access to manual laborers who could tackle this super green, self sufficient house. I got a nice surprise when he called me back fairly quickly; he had surveyed the island and told me it was, in fact, an atoll, the top rim of a vast caldera: a dormant volcano. He measured the earth's activity, and even though it was a very rough set of data, he advised me not to use solar panels, which he couldn't place out of sight, but a geothermal generator. He could hide such a generator partially in the lagoon, the rest inside a giant rock situated on the shore of the lagoon. I had to stop calling the lagoon that; it was the caldera of our volcano.

While I travelled to and from Seattle, Bella tried to clear up the frozen atmosphere in the house. We conferred regularly, but finally Bella decided to plant one of the subliminal messages. During the crisis week we stayed at the tree house; one night we were cuddling on the couch while watching a movie when my cell phone rang. It was the standard ringtone; a look at the screen showed a foreign number. I answered hesitantly.

 _"Edward, how nice to get you right away, can we talk freely?"_

It was Marcus. I felt Bella kicking my power into high gear, and I quickly listened out for any creature with enhanced hearing capability. With my power on steroids, my range was a little short of ten miles. Bella had hopped up from the couch and activated the dispersion field she had bought at theairport. Any listening device inside the field could not be activated or scrambled. Thus assured of our privacy, we settled side by side on the couch and told Marcus to continue.

 _"Well, I call because of the vampire royalty book Bella found for me. Also because of the evidence you recorded from Aro's mind. As you might have concluded, I am the official vampire king. I should say one of the vampire royal council. Sadly, I never got every detail on vampire royalty. My sire was destroyed before he could instruct me on the facts. I knew I was royalty, and as such changed with the motive to ensure that the royal line was upheld. At the time of my change a large rebellion had moved in and was trying to destroy all royals. When I was sure I could control myself, I went home and turned my brother. Caius had been five years my junior when I was changed; he had taken over taking care of my human family. I instructed my wife in all the knowledge I had on vampire royalty, and told her to tell only my eldest child when he reached adulthood. I wanted the knowledge of vampire royalty to live on in my line. But only the most direct branch, vowing them to total secrecy. After all I had to make sure the secret was kept safe._

 _"If anything, I needed a fellow royal I could trust. The vampire world was in a civil war, several royal lines fighting each other, destroying as many out of each line as possible. Caius and I went into hiding until it fizzled out. It fizzled out because nobody knew what the fight was about anymore. By that time every ancient had been destroyed, and the rest of the vampire world simply didn't have the knowledge about the leaders of their world. Then we made ourselves known and drove out the impostors trying to usurp all power. From then on we ruled together. Didyme joined the council when we mated; we discovered she's of one of the royal branches. I always thought that made our mating extra special, but we never researched it._

 _"Okay, now I read the book, which, by the way, isn't from the thirteenth century, it's from about a ninth, almost tenth. I say that because there is a large genealogical tree in it which stops around that date. Diverting, sorry, I know a lot more about the Vampire Royal Tree now. The most important fact in it is that the royal line only runs through firstborns. Only when the firstborn is vampirized before he or she has a human family of their own will the second born take over the line. The direct family is still royal, but their offspring are not. If the main line in a family is lost, because there are no siblings when the royal dies, and he or she has no family of their own, then the line is followed back up until the last generation where multiple siblings were there and then the second born line will take over._

 _"As you see, Royal Vampire genealogy is desperately complicated, and I'll need help to construct every line in a millennium old family tree. But the most important thing is that I now have proof that Aro, even though he is from a royal line, can't ever be the ruler of our kind. He was a third born. And he can only make a claim if both the first and second born of a branch have been vampirized or have died. His eldest sister was Didyme; she was vampirized before she had a family of her own. But his second elder sister was not; she lived a long and happy live, with seven children who survived. Thus removing his royal status when she died."_

"Marcus, that's a lot to take in over the phone, and you're right, it makes for a lot of work if all chronicling of the Royal branches has stopped around 1000 AD," Bella told Marcus.

"And even if this is all very interesting, right now, I'm sorry, Marcus; I have to sort out my coven first. Bella and I are now able to enter the subconscious mind. I must say that it's a little too chaotic for me, but Bella thrives there. She was able to sabotage some signs there, signs which seemed to be some kind of subliminal message to whoever's mind we were in. She can easily overwrite them with more positive messages, but it made it crystal clear that somebody is trying to sabotage this gathering of vampires as a coven, and stimulating the family with me and Bella as subservient members."

 _"I see, you're right, that must take precedence over a possibly long search for a reincarnation. But I'm adamant that, at least, you two will be active members of my search team. We don't want any questions of loyalty. I just wanted to keep you apprised of my research."_

"Please keep doing that. Some of our coven will be an excellent help in the research department. My mind goes to Carlisle and Jasper especially. We can't, however, give you any idea yet who will help you, besides ourselves. Bella and I need complete solitude to go over all information we gathered, and work out a plan. Do you have a way we can contact you without blowing your cover? I mean, we might need your help deciphering any of Aro's memories."

 _"Of course, dear boy, you and your exquisite mate can count on me. You can text me on this number; the phone is always off unless I'm here, in my sanctuary. It actually never leaves here. I've made it a habit to take a walk every day; Aro scoffs about it, but accepts my idiosyncrasies. I take them to feel close to Didyme, at least that's the cock and bull I've fed him. It's partly true of course; I definitely come here to feel closer to her. I just don't take walks to do so. Ah, well, I truly took walks for a few centuries, just until Aro got bored sending guards loyal to him after me. As soon as he left me to my walks, I started construction on this place. That took me another few centuries. The knowledge gathered here took the rest of the time, and is ongoing._

 _"To get back to contacting me, text this phone. I'll check it every day; that means I'll call you back within a maximum of twenty hours. Mostly I'm here during the nights. As you can understand, daytime walks are out of the question in sunny Italy. Call me at night and you'll probably reach me immediately. If you have total privacy with the advantage of technology we can even make it a conference video call._

 _"I've got to go. Demetri just texted me on my official phone; some deviants from the south of your country have been brought in to be judged. My presence is required. I wish you both a lot of luck rooting out the nasties of your coven. Speak to you soon. Goodnight."_

"Have a good day, Marcus, we'll speak soon." We spoke in unison. The phone-call ended with Marcus' delighted laughter about our obvious link.

"Edward, I somehow have the feeling that Marcus is lonely. Every chance he gets he talks our ears off."

I chuckled and nodded. The rest of the night we passed in each other's arms, softly kissing and talking. We made provisional plans, but ultimately we decided to wait for everything to pass. The human trials and Christmas were all too close to execute even the smallest plan to clean up the workings of the coven.

Firstly, Christmas passed with an appropriate blow up from Alice; for being surprised at her gag gifts, mostly. It seemed everybody had commissioned Bella to buy Alice's gifts, thus thwarting her power completely. We had a very nice night after she stormed out insulted. Bella completely blew me away with her personal gift for me. I was so incredibly grateful for the promise we both made: to stay out of each other's surprise area in our minds. Her reaction to La Bella Isla was satisfactory as well. Of course she thought I had gone overboard, but she never voiced it. She had had the same initial idea: give us the freedom to be ourselves. I build us a private sanctuary; she gave us the world to explore. The best was her follow up gift to us both. Her own motorcycle with trailer.

I noticed a trend in her gifts; she subtly pushed me toward a new image. Every gift had the same theme: steampunk. Her comment was that I embodied steampunk: old hardware with new function. I didn't object, because each and every item she got me was utterly beautiful. I liked them a lot.

We had a few very nice days, while we were waiting on the trials, driving the southwestern loop. We started in Olympia and went as far south as San Francisco, as far east as Salt Lake City, then returned back to Washington. For humans it would have taken more than a week. We planned it right, and drove the long boring highway bits during the nights. It freed up a lot of time, so we could take our time on the loops near Springfield and Salt Lake City. The freedom that traveling on the bikes gave us was exhilarating, especially the nighttime drives. I drove circles around Bella, really putting the sports bike through its paces. Bella refused to race me as she said her bike was made for touring, plus she had the trailer. The sunny days we had around Salt Lake didn't give us any problems as Bella had taken great care in choosing our biking gear; not a piece of skin was on display. Sadly we had to hurry back after Salt Lake because we got a call about the trials, and we were expected to testify two days later.

After those animals were all convicted, which was very satisfying, we decided to leave the family to stew about the future and go on our honeymoon. And that's where we were now, closing in fast to our very own piece of paradise, or so I hoped. My eternal home stood magnificently at the bow, suddenly bouncing on the balls of her feet; a glance in the distance showed me the outline of our paradise looming on the horizon. I knew the course I had to take to safely maneuver the ship into the natural harbor, both for the safety of the ship, as well as the coral reef surrounding the atoll. The island grew bigger and bigger, and I veered to the left, following the instructions the contractor had sent me. Although the lagoon looked completely closed off, on the left side it had an opening big enough for this ship. Because of all the water movement through that channel it had become a natural shipping lane.

Because I knew what to look for, I could now see our house glint between the trees. But if you didn't know you wouldn't see it at all until you're docked in the lagoon. Everything looked completely pristine, uninhabited. Bella's excitement was palpable, but her demeanor had gone through a subtle change while she was looking over the ocean. It looked like she had truly stepped into the supernatural world, although I didn't know if that was the case as she had closed the mental part of the link, which was her way of telling me that she needed a bit of privacy. We needed to be careful and take our time alone when we needed it. Constantly being in each other's minds was great, but everybody needs time to themselves to reflect. Bella had made me aware of that fact, and I understood completely. We agreed that if one of us closed the link, the other would only break through in an emergency.

While I was admiring my beautiful mate we had reached the opening in the lagoon and I carefully steered the ship to its dock. Suddenly my mind was flooded with superlatives from Bella; she was flipping through them all, trying to find a word to describe her first impression of our paradise. A second track was cataloguing everything she saw. As usual, her observations were more than astute; she actually saw the camouflaged door in the big rock housing the geothermal generator. I was very impressed at the job the human contractor had done in such a short timeframe; a big bonus would be going his way. If he hadn't sent me pictures of everything he'd done, I wouldn't have spotted the house hiding between the trees. Where the white, coral sand beach was the widest he had planted a thick fringe of adult palm trees against the jungle like forest. They hid the big stainless steel uprights lifting the living quarters of the house into the trees. I designed it like that, to give it the feel of a treehouse. But unlike our sanctuary in Forks, this house had a rather roomy ground floor. It housed a garage for jet skis and quads. But more importantly, it held the quarantine cages for any wildlife imported to the island.

That was the last, and most difficult, endeavor I had undertaken to make this a true self sufficient island for a pair of humanitarian vampires. I managed to acquire breeding rights for several species of big cats; one of my aliases with a conservationist background did, actually. The atoll consisted of the big island and three smaller ones. Each of the smaller ones was big enough for a breeding pair with its immature offspring, half of the offspring would be distributed around the world; because they would grow up without human contact they could be set out in the wild. The other half would be transplanted to the large island, becoming dinner to us eventually. We would have to monitor everything carefully, and visit at least once a year to ship out some of the almost mature kittens, and put the rest on the main island. At the moment we had six cats in quarantine: a pair of Bengal tigers, a pair of black jaguars, and the fastest of cats, a pair of cheetahs. Furthermore the big island, as well as the three smaller ones, were stocked up on prey animals.

The big island now sported a very large herd of Eld's deer, a Thai species comparable with white-tailed deer. The three smaller islands each had a herd of hog deer, another Asian species of deer. All islands were also stocked with monkeys. The contractor had spotted a lot of birds; the islands were probably a beloved resting place in the middle of an ocean crossing. But my proudest acquisition was our dinner during our honeymoon; I didn't want to keep them. A vicious pack of gray wolves, which should have been destroyed, was captured inside a Native American village. They almost succeeded in taking the Chief's young daughter after terrorizing the cattle and pets from the tribe. We had eight wolves to sate our thirst during the honeymoon. The cats were a long term endeavor; none would be drained this time. But all carcasses we left would be dumped at one of the smaller islands. It would be a waste to leave all that meat to rot.

The last thing on the ground floor of our house was the substation of the geothermal generator, the bit that distributed the electrical energy created over the house. Bella still stood frozen on the dock, looking around, trying to find where to go. She walked at a leisurely pace to where the dock jutted out from the beach; there in the sand was a flagstone path to the edge of the jungle, about three-hundred feet to the right of the house. Her curiosity piqued higher still. Slowly turning around she locked her gaze with mine, it was the first time we made eye contact since we boarded our ship. Her excitement crackled through the link, and I became just like her. We were two little kids on the verge of a big adventure. Bella's eyes lit up even more at hearing my assessment. She turned around and sped along the path. I was rooted to the spot, watching her run like a cat along the path, rapidly closing in on the house.

Bella's lithe form disappeared between the trees, which jolted me out of my stupor. As fast as I could I ran after her, wanting to see her with my own eyes when she saw the house for the first time. I caught up with her just as the imposing stainless steel and red wood structure showed through the trees. Bella gasped, her mind categorizing the house as a floating mansion. It took her a while to fully understand the way it was constructed; because the 'legs' were of polished stainless steel, they acted like mirrors and almost disappeared from view, making the living quarters seem to float between the trees. The outside was clad in a red wood, which I knew was harvested from the island, most probably teak, and stood in sharp contrast to the greens and browns of the surrounding jungle.

Suddenly the scent of the cats registered with Bella, her reaction almost feral. I could only just catch her, holding her, invading her mind ruthlessly and planting a stop sign as big as I could think up in her subconscious. Soothing her back to reason, I mentally explained why the cats were there, that they were all endangered cats, breeding pairs who would inhabit the smaller islands, That that their offspring would ultimately help repopulate the dwindling stock in the wild. Bella's eyes grew wide with awe, taking it all in. A smirk appeared when I told her that half of the offspring would be our dinner eventually. That smirk became a full blown grin when I told her about the pack of renegade wolves that would sustain us right now. She flitted into the ground floor garage and gave a quick view around, pointing to the jet skis and quads enthusiastically, but her attention was riveted on the quarantine cages in the back. Her thoughts showed that she didn't want to freak the beautiful animals out, deciding to watch from a safe distance. I agreed; I already had decided to tranquilize them from a distance when we needed to move them to their personal islands.

I watched Bella looking at the cats for about fifteen minutes in complete silence, frozen to her spot. The only movement found was in her face, depicting all her emotions; from tenderness to raw lust.

Again, without any warning, Bella flitted to the stairs in the garage part of the ground floor; I was hot on her heels. We emerged in the living room taking up the entire second floor of the house. A large fireplace dominated the middle of the room, surrounded by comfortable couches and rugs. A grand piano sat facing one of the floor to ceiling windows. Somehow we kept silent, only communicating through the link, but the squeal resonating through our mental space was deafening. It was obvious Bella agreed with my vision of a great house. Diagonally across from where we ascended was another set of stairs, leading us to the third floor. No speed this time, Bella ascended the stairs, touching the walls and trimmings reverently. She came out in the bedroom, dominated by the extra large canopy bed, made out of the same wood as the outside of the house. While the stairs came up to one side of the room, the other three walls each had double doors. The bedroom had no windows, only a big skylight. Bella was skipping around the room, even climbing on and bouncing on the bed. The bedroom made her, once again, ecstatic.

Her spacial feelers noticed the rounded corners of the room; curious, she walked over to the opposite door. Opening it up, she froze on the threshold. Through her eyes I surveyed the bathroom; it was stunning, circular, and full of luxury. Again no windows, but instead a skylight to let the light in. I designed it this way, to make more wall space and to use direct light instead of the subdued light coming through the trees. My mind was assaulted by a very lusty daydream from Bella; this time I welcomed it. From her I welcomed everything I could get. We were making use of all possibilities in the shower, from the cuddling wall to the multiple shower heads. Next we moved to the grand Jacuzzi, utilizing the water jets to great effect. But even as one of her tracks had no trouble in completely distracting me, one of the other tracks worked out the geometrical puzzle of the top floor.

She bolted to the other two rooms, giving the closet a cursory glance to make sure it's circular. She froze again on the threshold of the library. At the moment only a few of the bookcases were filled. I hadn't had time to buy a lot of our favorites, so I went with the top one hundred for each of us. In the middle of the circular room, underneath the skylight, were two of the most comfortable looking chairs I'd ever seen. A quarter of the wall space was fitted out with a large computer-monitor, and an electronic blackboard. Between the reading chairs stood a small table holding a laptop. Bella was scanning the approximately one hundred and fifty books on the shelves, as about half of our top favorites overlapped. Excerpts of several books floated through her mind, just like it did through mine that first day we met.

My concentration drifted from her mind, coming back to my own. I was suddenly acutely aware of my physical state. Bella's daydream had garnered the attention of my body; my jeans were straining to contain my rock hard cock. Every fiber of my body was vibrating at our frequency. I simply had to have her; I had to have her now!

Bella slowly turned away from the books, scanning my body from the toes up. When her gaze fell on my barely contained cock, she licked her lips. She broke the silence between us for the first time in almost a day, taunting me.

"Mmmmhh... Edward, you look positively feral. Now are you going to catch me?"

I was locked in place until she flew out of the room, down the stairs, and into the jungle in a second flat. I tore my clothes off and flew after her. I would catch up with her... I needed her badly; she was MINE.

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 **Please review.**

 **Next week we hear from Bella again. Teasers for this story can be found in the FB group Bubbleybear & Pienuniek's Storynook. ** groups/769231999887800/

 **Next week we will start with recommendations again. See you then. Pien**


	2. Chapter 2 Kink Is Welcome

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer, I just borrow her characters and play around. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Wow, you guys have blown me away with all the follows, favorites and reviews I've gotten. It was nice to see that my other stories received more attention too.**

 **Thanks to Lorraine Bubbleybear and Chandrakanta for all their help.**

 **Now on to the next chapter. I've been told I need to put a 'Do Not Read At Work' warning on this one. When reading at home I advise to pull out the Shamwow.**

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Chapter 2

BPOV

I darted out of the house, leaving the link open; I wanted him to catch me. While speeding into the jungle I tore my clothes off, I saw him doing the same in my mind. Truly free I let my instincts take over, taking to the trees, making the hunt more pleasurable. Tree hopping and vine swaying I tried to enlarge the distance between us as quickly as possible. I had noticed his body reacting as soon as I let my mind wander to the possibilities we'd be able to achieve in that dream bathroom, but I felt him almost completely inside my mind. It was obvious he wasn't connected to his bodily reactions. The advantage of being a vampire was that, once aroused, the body would go into a holding pattern until its owner could make use of it.

He was in hot pursuit now; not going for stealth he crashed through the trees, adding a nice accent in throwing out a Tarzan-like cry. His velvety voice was a caress on my naked body, the only thing missing from this scenario was a nice prey to share. I let my senses run free to explore the jungle for something edible. Somewhere to the south were some deer-like creatures by the smell of it, but the scent wafting across my path on a light breeze from the west was infinitely more appetizing. It was bold, sweet, and as close to human I had ever smelt. I changed direction, picking up a lot of speed using a big vine to swing five trees further, letting go in the middle of the swing, diving down to the ground and hitting it at full speed. I heard a muffled curse behind me; my dominant male mate had reached the end of his patience and lost my scent for just a second. My lead grew a little bit and I was hot on the tantalizing scent. I froze on the edge of a clearing, up in the trees again; I looked down on a pack of wolves. I wondered why their scent was so much more human-like than the wolves I'd encountered before—just for a moment though, I was being chased.

I waited until I could feel Edward behind me and pounced, dropping the two smallest wolves while growling viciously to scare the rest away. As soon as I broke the necks of the wolves in my grip, I felt two large hands on my hips, anchoring me to the spot.

"And what do you think you were doing? Running away from your mate, when he needs you..." he whisperedinto my ear.

"I secured us a nice meal, and you know you like to chase me."

He pressed his entire body against mine, rubbing his very hard dick through my ass-crack. I lifted my right hand, still with the wolf in it, the larger of the two, offering it to him. With a slightly annoyed growl he attacked and started to drain it. I quickly drained the smaller wolf; because Edward had let me go I could move away from him. I intended to run again to draw out our cat and mouse game. As soon as my wolf ran dry I took off; we could come back later to collect the carcass for the cats. Jumping high into a tree I took off to the top of the mountain. Once again I had to use all my cunning to keep some distance between us. Edward was only a tree and a half behind. He was completely in dominant mode; the chase only exacerbated his mindset. I mewled at him, receiving a growl in return. This was the first time we played this game since Marcus integrated our vampire selves with the human ones. It made for a far more enjoyable experience. Due to my gentle change I tended to be a bit more on the human side; that was where this mental humdrum came from, analyzing everything while still acting on pure instinct.

Edward closed in on me; he nearly caught me right out of the air during one of my jumps. The jump made us clear the canopy altogether and Edward's attention was completely broken. He stopped mid chase and clambered, with difficulty, through the fine twigs that made up the canopy. He quickly wove some twigs together to make a little platform; the top part of the trees simply wasn't built to hold the weight of a vampire. I felt slightly rejected; I mean, you try to entice your mate with a carnivore and chase and he leaves you to it mid-chase. He called me up though—his voice had a little panic in it—that was my cue to throw aside my petty feelings and scramble through the twigs to a second little platform Edward had made.

"Look there, beautiful." I had to refocus my lusty eyes away from his naked, glittering magnificence. Following his arm I saw smoke rising through the trees at the foot of the mountain.

"This island is an atoll, the top part of an ancient volcano; the contractor used the easily accessible heat for our geothermal generator. Now I'm afraid his drilling into a sealed volcano has reactivated it. We need to investigate, as your assessment in our first week was very right: volcanos are the only real threat to our existence. I would hate to be frolicking in the jungle when our volcano starts to erupt, cutting us off from the ship and seriously endangering us with flying pieces of superheated rock."

"Shouldn't we smell smoke then? If it's that pronounced shouldn't we feel it too?"

"I don't know; until now I always stayed far away from volcanos, I really am out of my depth here. We are usually better predictors of seismic events than the electronic devices. But the wind is in our back, so the smell would be blown away from us."

"Well, we can stand here and panic, or we can investigate and make sure it's not endangering this personal paradise you created."

He nodded, threw me onto his back, and started to run over the canopy, his movements lightning fast, making his moments of contact so short the canopy could hold us. This way we were as far from the source of the smoke as possible. Edward reacted on a thought of mine that we could first determine if it was indeed smoke; he veered around the white column of undetermined vapor, bringing us in the course of it. The smoke wafted into our faces and both our faces changed into big grins. It was steam, simply water vapor. It had a slight sulfuric scent to it, but Edward was going through the plans for the geothermal generator. It worked on superheated water vapor; it pumped water into a chamber close to the magma, the water superheated and drove the generator to produce electricity. I suddenly understood why we had not noticed the vapor when we arrived. No electricity had been used. Now we had activated the island, which started the generator. The superheated steam had given off its energy and became normal steam that had to be vented.

We had rested too long in one spot and we unceremoniously crashed through the canopy. Our fall broken by several branches and vines, we stopped about twenty feet from the ground, squished together in a fork of big tree limbs. I burst out in a fit of giggles, remembering my first assessment of Edward: he was perfect and did everything perfectly. He heard that thought and joined me in my laughter. During the fall, Edward had shifted me to his front and we were lodged close together, his still rock-hard dick pressed into my stomach. Our laughter generated friction, which made our state of mind shift simultaneously from rational to the earlier playful friskiness. Edward's dick throbbed against my stomach; my core flooded and lubricated the thigh I was sitting on. I saw Edward's eyes darken to pitch black, reflecting my own doing the same. Minds and bodies locked together, we engaged our hands to entice every bit of skin we could reach. I scratched his biceps and sides, he grabbed my ass cheeks, massaging them roughly and pushing me even harder against his still growing dick. Yes, he was fully erect before, but when the vampire gets warmed up he gains at least another inch or two; you just have to love vampire traits.

Our vicious movements began to harm our involuntary seat; I grabbed Edward's shoulders and threw us sideways out of the fork. As soon as we started falling I wrapped myself completely around my mate. We plummeted the last twenty feet toward a rock pile from where the steam was rising. Upon impact, to our big surprise, the rock pile gave way. The rocks broke up and crumbled, clearing a big hole in the ground, a hole which just happened to be right beneath us. We fell a further fifty feet into a big cave. The landing was surprisingly cushy; the whole cave was covered in a thick mattress of moss. All this registered to a minor track in my mind, while all the major ones were focused on the creature I was wrapped around. He captured my mouth roughly and forced his tongue into my mouth. He had me pinned to the ground and it looked like he wouldn't be my equal now. He had given in completely to his dominant side.

I had to make my own choice...

"No you don't, Kitten, tonight I will make the choices for you. You are here to please me... Now, will you comply or not?"

He completely let go, sitting back on his haunches, giving me the freedom to fight or submit. But he had told the truth, his choice for me would be mine. His cocky smirk grew when he followed my train of thoughts. I told him I would submit, but we needed to close the link initially; he would have to read my body-language. I would give him my physical submission; the mental one, not so much. He was on his feet in an instant.

"Kneel before me, Kitten, please."

I knelt, knees together, hands folded in my lap and my eyes trained on his. With the link closed I needed some kind of connection. Ever since the link established on our wedding day, we were never apart again; even hours' travel between us meant nothing, the link was always connecting us. It was actually a much more intimate connection than touch could ever be. We each had created a private corner in our mind where we would not go with each other, but we needn't talk out loud, we saw everything in our minds, the ultimate form of communication.

He asked me to lower my eyes; I did and immediately an ache settled in my chest. He probably felt it too, because his hand came to rest on my head. We were connected again and the ache subsided. He stalked around me, constantly keeping at least a fingertip on my body, but otherwise detached. I felt his eyes drinking in the sight before them. A low growl rumbled through the cave, slowly filling the space because the echoes amplified the original sound. I started focusing my concentration on feeling, trying to silence the rest of my brain.

"This won't be gentle; you'll let your mate claim you willingly and you'll only fight back if I go too far. You better be ready, NOW!"

I was still focused on a little white flower about an inch in front of my knees. His hand caressed my shoulder and then I was flying towards the wall, a moss covered rock jutted out towards me and I landed draped over that rock. I surrendered my body completely to him. He let go of me for a moment, then a whooshing sound reach my sensitive ears, followed by a crash like stone on stone; a burning sensation spread from my ass, through my abdomen, to my core. The ache in my heart flared, until once again the whoosh-crash-burn combo returned. He spanked a healthy twenty times, concentrating on my ass and upper thighs. The delicious burning grew and grew. I had to fight to remain still and silent. My rational mind was balking against the spanking, but my body and emotional mind reveled in it. I had to disengage my rational mind; I wanted him to have me whole, but until my instincts were able to take over completely I couldn't open up the link. The thoughts going through my rational mind would be like a cold shower to instinctual Edward.

Banning the independent, prudish part of my mind to the least significant track available and putting that track in my vault, I was able to drown in the feelings Edward was able to entice out of me. His smooth hands were running over every part of my body, groping roughly at my breasts, hips, and hair. He was lost in lust and made the most glorious, animalistic sounds. Spread out as I was on the rocky whipping bench, he suddenly discovered my back entrance. He immediately thrust a finger inside, making me arch off the bench by pulling my hair. His hard dick ground into my thigh while he added another finger, lubricated with my bountiful fluids. The feeling was out of this world, the warmth still there from the spanking mixing with a completely new full sensation. I felt like my insides were coming back to life, slowly writhing inside my stone body, I was barreling fast towards release.

"Don't you dare come, we're a long way from release. You'll have to earn it today, Kitten." Edward growled into my ear while he pulled harder on my hair, making my scalp tingle deliciously. A low growl of lust rumbled from my chest; there was nothing I could do to stop it. Another finger was added to the two already ravaging my ass. He wasn't gentle, and he didn't have to be it seemed; I felt a stretching sensation but no pain. The feeling was more intense near the surface, physically and mentally. My whole being was awash in new sensations but I missed the deep, throbbing, slow build impressions I got from straight fucking. In my lust-addled state I apparently had let him into my mind again, because he suddenly started chuckling evilly.

"Lookie here, I get full access. So, you'd like to be even more immersed in these feelings? I think I'd like that too."

With a lightning-fast move he was sheathed fully inside of me, his fingers still pumping my ass. His dick was hitting all those throbbing places inside, igniting a wave of electrical jolts throughout my body. A picture of his dick in stainless steel flashed through his mind, followed by a little fantasy video; he fucked my ass with the dildo, while doing the same to my pussy with his dick. I sent him my fantasy back, the same magnificent dildo becoming a strap-on, my hips pounding against his equally magnificent ass, one hand arching him back by the hair while the other hand was firmly locked around his dick. The growl that image evoked filled the cave with sound, his smooth rhythm faltered; I succeeded in pushing him closer to his release by only giving him things mentally.

Immediately I went back to his video of him double teaming me with his dick in the flesh and stainless steel. I made the dildo grow out slowly until it was a perfect copy of Edward. Subtle differences in both their faces showed that Edward was to my front, locking my legs around his waist. Lion drilled my ass while he held my arms restrained behind my back, my hands gripping my ass cheeks to spread them open.

Edward went wild. He let my hair go and started slapping my ass, growling between his teeth that I was his, only his, wholly and completely fucking his. _His_ mind went on playing the fantasy video, Lion pulled out and bent me backwards only to impale my mouth. At that moment I got the fingers, which were in my ass, thrust into my mouth. A small rational part of my brain was glad vampires didn't have bowl movement anymore, all orifices were clean always. I sucked the fingers greedily, knowing that was what he wanted. Those fingers represented Lion's dick; he was singlehandedly acting out the fantasy, all while still pinning me to the bench-rock. The flood of physical and mental pleasure rolling through my body started to break down my concentration to hold back; I had to start begging to be allowed to come. That sentence started running through my head as a last attempt at concentration. Edward's frantic thrusts started to falter, he too was very close. With the possibility of complete failure to hold back, I started to massage his dick with my pubococcygeal muscles, and with a final growl he ordered me to come with him.

Once again our connection was complete, and with the electricity at its highest point we lifted off and floated in a blissed out state in the middle of the cave. As the electricity slowly dissipated we drifted down, landing softly on the moss mattress.

"Mmm, love, I think I'm paralyzed right now. I can't feel my legs and the rest of me feels like jelly," I told him, smiling, my hands creeping into his hair. He lay on top of me, not even trying to keep his weight off.

"Kitten, your assessment of my body is completely correct. I don't think I can move a muscle, a feat highly unusual for a century old vampire. I'm a bit confused too. What in the hell just happened? I mean where did that come from? And why can't I seem to find my composure? Hot damn, where did that fantasy come from? It was singularly the most hottest thing I ever witnessed and I've seen a lot! It was also the only way that'll ever happen. I can't physically split up like that in real life, but I'm sure we can find a way to cast my cock; our dirty minds will fill in the rest easily, because I was inside that fantasy, not here in the cave at all."

"I can't answer all your questions, Edward, because I don't know myself. But I highly enjoyed your domination, the way you finally let all your instincts take over without the loss of your human side. I'm not completely there yet. What about the second fantasy? Is it something you would enjoy?"

"I might have difficulty submitting myself, to let you manhandle me that way. The idea of penetration doesn't scare me; it's equally erotic to male and female vamp...ugh…"

He just proved his own point; I had inserted my pointer finger into his ass. He lost his train of thought, not in the way I hoped though. He rolled off me and ended up in a fetal position with his back to me. He ignored me when I asked him what the problem was. He put his active thoughts into his shielded room. Damn, he was shutting down; I had never seen him like this. He had never ignored me before, or hidden away from me. I was torn. Should I give him his privacy, or was it better to break him out of his despair? Because although he had locked away his thoughts, his mood came through loud and clear. He was desperate, full of self-loathing and hate for himself. Where did this come from? We had the best time, chasing each other, followed by the most perfect, kinky sex... Oh damn, that couldn't be it? His Victorian nature had tried to take over; what we had done wasn't anywhere acceptable to that part of him. He had hit me, pulled my hair, and basically forced me to have anal sex. At this moment it didn't mean a thing that I enjoyed the hell out of it. He had violated me, in his mind at least.

He still hadn't moved at all. I tried once more to get a reaction the normal way, not wanting, really, to invade his privacy. It didn't work at all; even literally shaking him didn't make him react. I was getting angry; this was supposed to be our honeymoon, damn it! The anger made my decision; I closed my eyes, focused, and dove through the link. I opened my mental eyes and looked around myself. I'd been here before many, many times but never before had it looked like this. Normally a warm glow lit the room and memory pictures of us lined the walls. Now harsh white light pummeled the black walls, not a picture in sight. A single white door was closed and, after trying it, locked. My determination went in overdrive; this was my mate's mind and it looked desolate. Nothing of his newfound confidence remained. He had reverted right back to his pre-mated-self.

I was hit with an epiphany; this couldn't just be from what just happened. This was aggravated by something else. Was it probable that Edward had signs in his mind too? Only one way to know for sure, and I had to find it out. I put my hand on one of the nasty black walls and slid through. I was assaulted by a plethora of signs that looked wilted. The texts on them showed that all of these were planted after we had met. The messages just hadn't worked at all because Edward had been protected by my shield as soon as we mated. But I felt that with his subconscious so cluttered he would slip back easily. With that thought a large dumpster materialized next to me and I was off plucking all the wilted signs from his mind and disposing of them in the dumpster. When the forest thinned, I could finally look around; three large signs stood under spotlights that were placing them in three light-circles. The rest of this room was in total darkness, nothing could be seen outside of the signs. These signs looked old, weathered and repaired. The oldest looking told him he was the youngest brother either way, the middle one told him to grit his teeth and endure the sexual thoughts around him, and the third one urged, in several different ways, him to hand over control of the finances to Alice.

And there it was; this was the first time a sign bore her name, this was our first hard bit of evidence she was behind it all. I ripped out the three signs viciously; as soon as a sign was dumped its spotlight extinguished. At the back of the room a warm green light glowed into existence, lighting a large infinity sign. The sign diffused the light to a wider area, where a statue of Edward and me locked into a passionate embrace materialized. Our mating was back to being the most important thing in his subconscious mind. Now it was time to see what this purging had done to his conscious mind. I slipped through the wall into a familiar space; everything had returned to normal. I wouldn't disturb his private room; I needed him in the physical world. I returned to my own mind.

Edward was still rolled up on the floor, but his hands were no longer over his face. I could see his tightly closed eyes, his bottom leg was now stretched out a bit. Overall he looked like a small child sleeping. I went and sat next to him, softly scratching his scalp through his hair. Slowly his facial muscles relaxed...

The next second he was on his feet

"THAT DAMN BITCH POISONED MY MIND!"

We both winced at the cave amplifying his screams to a deafening mess of sound.

"...how in the hell did she do it? And why did this happen? I mean, I was back in a place only Tanya could bring me to."

"Edward, I think your Victorian values opened the door to your purgatory, because what we did wasn't exactly in sync with his ideas. You lived like that for almost sixty years; before you were manipulated it was much less severe. I've cleaned up your sub-conscious and I found proof that Alice was behind the signs. I think we need to delve into her past; remember, I stored her complete memory banks in Italy."

"You're right, let's get back to the house. I'll text Marcus; we might need his help."

He then reached for me, wrapped me up in his comforting arms.

"Thank you, sweetheart, for getting me out of that state."

"You're welcome, Edward, I will do that every time it's necessary; you're my mate."

We jumped out of the cave and ran hand in hand toward the house.

* * *

 **I hope that I did the idea of hot, wild vampire sex justice.**

 **I'm returning to my weekly recommendations. This week I simply had to start with the lovely Heaven Sent by Bubbleybear. It's still a WIP but I know it's fully prewritten and will post a chapter every week. Ffn:** 11487184 **and on FP on her profile LorraineBubbleybearJuillerat.**

 **The second recommendation is the best vampward I've read in the last two years. It's Mason Manor by Drotuno. Ffn** 10108743, **FP** **on her profile: Drotuno.**

 **See you all next week,**

 **enjoy reading,**

 **Pien**


	3. Chapter 3 Actions of a Depraved Mind

**Disclaimer: SM owns Twilight, I just borrow her characters no copyright infringement is** **intended.**

 **I'm glad you all liked their frolicking on their personal island. This time we're going to look at more coven business.**

 **The chapter today is not beta'd as of yet, as soon as I get the chapter I'll replace it. I just wanted to post on schedule.**

 **Thanks go once again out to Lorraine Bubbleybear and Chandrakanta.**

* * *

Chapter 3 Actions of a depraved mind

EPOV

I needed to find my phone; I had ripped my clothes off without thinking about my wallet and phone in my trouser pocket. I prayed it wasn't broken. Running around the bedroom, clearing the rags, formerly known as my clothes, I came along the pieces containing my trouser pockets. I sighed in relief when I saw that my phone was still in working order.

After I send Marcus the text, we set everything up in the library, the still very bare library. Bella was busy with the laptop, arranging the necessary documents on the electronic blackboard. I quickly sorted through the hard copy papers, essentially Aro's complete personal memory-bank; we had another twenty binders with the memories he had stolen from countless individuals. Those had come in handy in analyzing how much he actually took. We had been right, he never took it all anymore, certain in his omnipotence, he only rifled through the minds to look for disloyalty or a lack of fear of him. Never mind that though, we had to come up with a plan to free our coven from a menace. If we could get to a plan about that, we could then tackle how we would dethrone Aro, and have Marcus reclaim what was his.

Bella sat down, closed her eyes and started going through Aro's memories, highlighting every crime against vampire law he had committed to gain power.

"Honey, can you switch subjects? We need to first sort out our domestic problem, to make sure we will be free of betrayal when we start to set up our plan to bring Aro down."

Abruptly the slideshow of incriminating evidence against Aro switched to blurry video of Alice's human family cowering away from her. She was ranting at them for being too average, too stupid to help her gain the status she thought befitted her. The scene was startling, because in the big mirror in the room we could see Alice ranting. Taking into account that she always was small for her age, she couldn't have been more than seven! She then started to give out orders at what her family members should do to improve themselves. The fearful looks in their eyes transformed to a glassy one and they started to nod like bobble heads.

The scene shifted, again, in a mirror we could see a teenage Alice whispering into her sleeping father's ear. She explicitly lined out the game-plan. Her father would dump her in the asylum, making sure that no records would be kept on her. When she had been in the asylum for a week he had to call the doctor and make sure that she would be killed by electroshock.

Bella gasped; next to the scene of Alice whispering to her father another scene with blurry edges appeared. It was Bella listening to Jasper, telling her why he decided to change Alice. Damn, she was right; the whole scenario had played out exactly like Alice had whispered to her father. This had to be an ability Alice had, and she most likely had retained it during the change.

"Damn, I always believed that a vampire either had an ability or a power. Absolutely never did I think about it being possible to have both. But looking at it now, a lot of things, I ranked as side effects of her power, seem to be a product of manipulation..."

I was just starting to build steam on my rant when my phone rang with the Godfather ringtone I assigned to Marcus.

"Marcus, glad to hear from you this quick."

 _"Edward, Bella, what can I do for you?"_

"We are looking for your guidance in cleaning up our coven. We just discovered that your assessment of Alice was more than true. She only lives for herself, she has an image in her head of how her life should go and she uses her power to make sure it goes that way. The thing we discovered, though, by going through her human memories and putting it next to Jasper's account of things, is that she must have an ability next to her power. She can't have done all of it with just her future seeing power, she must have manipulated us all."

"Marcus," Bella interjected, "I'm now able to use Edward's power to get into people's sub-conscious..."

 _"Ah, that is fantastico, bellisima Bella."_

"Yes, Marcus, it is. What I want to tell you is that I've found signs in all of the coven members whose subconscious I visited. Signs that seem to work as subliminal messages. Forcing the person they're planted in to do what they say. I just realized that Alice's manipulations manifest themselves as those signs. Edward hasn't looked in my sub-conscious yet, but I dare to say that my mind will be free of those signs due to my shield. I was in Edward's mind recently and found a complete forest of withered signs, haphazard commands for him to do things which never worked. All those signs were from the last few months, probably after our mating. Even if I wasn't conscious of my power, yet, then, I'm sure that my instincts made sure my mate was inside my protection. After I cleared out all those duds, I found three signs which were prominent and activated; they all were old and deeply planted. They essentially made it so that Edward was subservient and would give up his money without a struggle.

"That worked like a charm, Alice ruled the family, dictated everything according to her standards. It made the family stand out and be very noticed and made them have to move more often than needed. She's all for flaunting their wealth, always feeling superior to the humans in superficial ways. Now that we've gone through her memories—I collected them in Volterra using Aro's power—it's clear that she has the ability to manipulate, which is strengthened by her power to see the future. The sad part is that she never tried to use her extras to do good. She acted nice to me to have time to reel me in, too bad that backfired spectacularly. Her world has been slowly crumbling; mostly because she never could control me. When my latent power understood her power, my future disappeared more and more. She valiantly tried to keep that from us by predicting things away from me. At what time Charlie would come home etc.

"When Edward started to slip from her control, most notably when he started to buy his own clothes and _dared_ to come home with a bag from Walmart, she became more openly hostile. Her tantrums grew in size with each time she was thwarted...

"Oh I'm so sorry to monopolize and ramble, I'm just trying to think out loud, putting everything in line with the clarity of hindsight."

 _"Bella, don't worry about that, your ramblings, as you call them, were a very in depth explanation of everything you've been piecing together. I myself picked up on her_ _singleminded,_ _self serving loyalties; she feigned the conscious bonds, as I showed you. Now, when I went and put your mating in the registry, I looked up the other matings in your coven. Low and behold, to my surprise, I could only find two of them. Somewhere deep down Jasper must have felt that the mating was false, otherwise a law abiding vampire like him would certainly have registered."_

"Hold on Marcus, let me rifle through her memories." Bella broke in.

A flurry of pictures flew through our mind, Bella suddenly grabbed one of them, the picture became a video, a conversation with Jasper about their mating. He explained the mating registry and the need to register their mating. Alice's thoughts were very opposed to that, she didn't want her lowly beginnings known in the vampire world, and she understood pretty clearly that when her scam was registered her crime would be so much bigger. Jasper gave her the papers to fill out and an addressed envelope to send it. That's where she saw her opportunity; she blew Jasper off and went shopping. My eyes widened; they were supposed to be newly mated and they could be separated like that? The only thing keeping Bella and I sane when we were apart was that very unique link we had. While Alice went shopping she took a brief moment in a park and burned the registry papers.

I talked Marcus through our little video, but Bella could do better. She actually streamed the video through the laptop to Marcus' phone. There was one follow up video where Jasper questioned if his registration had arrived. Alice sidestepped the question and planted a sign in his mind to make him think the registry was resolved.

 _"Bella, how wonderful; you are quite inventive with your power, I'm awed at all the side-possibilities you've already discovered. Well done_ _,_ _mia tesora. Back to business, this menace to vampire society will have to answer to the Volturi when the time is right. When we send her to Aro he will happily pardon her multiple transgressions, in swap for her eternal servitude to him. That I can't condone, so her official trial will have to wait until we have Aro removed. Until that time I think your best option is to banish her with about five-thousand dollars. She'll have to leave everything she got with the proceeds of your labors behind. Go through her memories and look at what kind of clothing she wore as a human. Get her two outfits on that level and banish her. Make her turn in her electronics too, let's hope she never really looked at a new phone number, then she can't recall them. But you'll have to wait with all of this until Jasper contacts you. He will, be assured; his true loyalty lies with his coven leader, that means you."_

"You're right Marcus." Bella answered. "We'll wait for Jasper to contact us. But until then, can we help you in any way?"

 _"One of my concerns is that Alice will go to Aro and show him all your powers. That can go three ways; he sees the truth in that testimony and starts a manhunt for your talented coven members. He thinks she's one big pack of lies and destroys her immediately, or he doesn't believe the bit about your powers and enslaves her for hers. Again, especially the last outcome is the least desirable. I'm going to think on this, I'll call you in a few days to build a plan, this might be the opportunity for me to remove Aro from his stolen position."_

"When we've removed Alice from the coven, we'll strategize on finding the reincarnation of your mate. I have some ideas on how to tackle it. We will probably come to Italy to help you." I told Marcus.

 _"Very well, I'm actually excited about the idea of finding my mate again. We will talk soon, goodbye, Edward, Bella."_

The connection went dead; I put my phone on the table and enveloped Bella in my arms.

"We are going to have to find a way to enjoy ourselves until Jasper works through the clues he already has. I told you he already feels the mating pull is gone. That conniving little witch had us all in a headlock until you came along. I always wondered how she could take over everything so easily, her subliminal signs just kept me from working it out. She made sure I had other things keeping me from finding the truth. Jasper told me they had scouted us out carefully before they surprised us. I think that she started prepping our minds before we even knew she existed."

Bella rifled through Alice's memories and found a case that was locked tight, it seemed to be important but originating from that illogical part of our minds. Damn how strong was Bella's power? Did she actually harvest even the sub-conscious memories? Bella's mental giggles drew me out of my own head again, she stuck a key into the lock and to my surprise it opened the case right up.

"Uhm... Bella, where did you get the key?"

"Simple, silly, it's a universal key, it will open anything." She shrugged as if it was nothing.

The case was old, as old as vampire Alice herself, but filled with DVDs. I still didn't understand how the subconscious worked but accepted that information there updated its appearance automatically when better forms presented itself. Bella walked through our mental home. Shit, when did she create a home for us to wander through? It was beautiful, a true home. I got lost again looking at the pictures of us, jumping when an oil painting of us in the tree house in Forks suddenly changed into a watercolor of us lodged in the tree fork here on La Bella Isla. Another gale of Bella internal giggles streamed over me. She tugged on my hand and led me into a copy of our library where we were physically sitting. She popped the oldest DVD into the player and sent the feed to the electronic white board.

The images were shocking; in fact it was a comprehensive picture of a disturbed mind. It was obvious that Alice had an enormous, inflated sense of self; in her eyes everybody was beneath her. Her visions educated her from the age of three that she knew everything. Even as a human her idea of propriety was severely skewed. We watched every DVD and with slow clarity, began to grasp the extent of the depravity of Alice's mind. When her first visions of vampires invaded her mind she was intrigued. She soon discovered that vampires were far more powerful than humans, she couldn't have that! That's when she started to steer her visions by manipulating herself to look for a way to become a vampire herself. That's how she found Jasper.

Then we came to the period just before Alice and Jasper turned up on the Cullen's doorstep.

"I god damn smelled and heard them before they arrived, she didn't know my range! How in heavens name did she wipe that from a photographic mind?" I bellowed out, disgusted.

"Edward, it's the past, we discovered it now, she will pay her dues. Look, here's how she kept you from paying attention to their thoughts and scents. She planned her arrival when the Denali's were visiting. Look at the vibes she's sending to Tanya, do you remember this day?"

"I might, but it's locked away with everything else about Tanya, I'm not really inclined to unlock that batch of nastiness to find out what happened in minute detail. Looking at it from the outside, I think this was the first time that her seductions went from caresses to porn."

"And there you go, hunting with Emmett to escape her. In the time you were gone she conditioned them all, look, Carlisle retreating further into himself. Damn, I thought she didn't do much to Rose, but this shows her trying to subdue her too. We'll have to clean out her subconscious too. Come to think of it, everybody needs a clean-out once we're done with her. In the case of Jasper and Emmett I know they already found a way to stop her manipulations from working. Thinking about it, because it's an ability and not a power, once someone is aware of the manipulations, they automatically will devise their own way of defending themselves. Remember how I immediately was aware of her manipulations? That's why her attempts never worked on me."

"That's right! Oh Bella, now we need to see if your shield surrounds me too for real. Because your little speech that first day made me aware of her manipulations, I started to become immune to her."

"Edward, keep in mind that she also began to lose her visions around you. When my power started to grow and our bond too, you became encased in my personal shield. It gives me so much peace of mind that she can't see us, or predict what we will do."

"I've got enough for now, I'd like to take a tour of our own personal paradise and I think we have a few wolf carcasses stored in a tree for the cats downstairs."

"You're right, the mental torture is enough for today; let's try to make friends with our breeding cats." I said, grabbing her hand and tugging her down to the first floor. I crouched in front of the Black Panther cage, the cats immediately crouched down toward the back of the cage. Ears flat to their head, hissing furiously, they recognized a more powerful predator. I changed my threatening stand and knelt down instead, I froze into complete stillness. Through the link I asked Bella to go get the wolf carcasses. Until then she had kept a distance, standing near the exit to the beach. She disappeared and was back in five minutes dropping the wolves behind my back, retreating once more to the safe, for the cats, distance.

I grabbed one of the wolves and tore it in half. The cats had relaxed a bit, that was a good sign. Their instinctual fear of vampires was subdued a bit with the food they smelt was close by. I was grateful that the tearing of the wolf didn't create a mess. I threw the intestines into the cage after opening the door, I blocked the exit with my body, but the cats lunged at the treat. Until now they had only been fed with cleaned pieces of meat. All these cats came from breeding programs, their DNA signatures were matched carefully to make sure that the diversity of the species would be guaranteed. Every cat was just arriving at breeding age, the females all had been in heat once. When the intestines were gone, I stuck a hind leg into the cage this time without letting go.

Bella had watched my method as well as the other four cats. When she crouched in front of the tiger cage, the bigger cats were not impressed with the subservient and smaller female crouching in front of them. The male postured and threatened Bella to go away. Her reaction was instinctual and a big turn on for me. She stood up, making her profile bigger and let loose with a ferocious growl. All cats retreated to the back of their cages, including the black panthers who had almost had the courage to take a bite from the leg I was holding. My female had just proven to all of them that she too was their superior. She grabbed the other hind leg from the wolf I halved. The tigers were still feisty, but her unwavering stare kept them from attacking, they would try to get her as soon as she turned her back.

We got all the cats eating out of our hands, but touching them took about a week. When they all accepted us as superiors, who were exceptionally nice with their prey, we closed down the first floor and let the cats stretch their legs some more, one pair at the time. After the second week of daily conditioning we were ready to give the cats their personal islands. Every one of the little islands had an electrified fence running all along the coastline; the one on the tiger island was higher, just because those cats were known to be jail-breakers. The lower part of the fences were made of plexiglass and extended three feet into the ground. None of these cats were known to dig deeper than that. Each fence had a remote activation with the same security system as the tree house in Forks. Each island had a herd of prey animals for the cats to hunt. Once every six months new herd animals would be delivered through a lock system. The herd would be driven from the boat into a big enclosure on the outside of the fences. The company would then send me a message that the herds were delivered. And I could open the inside of the enclosure to free the herd onto the island via my phone.

It took us a day per pair of cats to relocate them and set them up on their islands, it was good we had them conditioned as they now followed us with little trouble. The male tiger tried to take out Bella once, but was faced with an angry vampire glaring back. Bella's instincts were fantastic, she gave him a slap across the nose which was gentle enough not to harm him, but hard enough to instill some respect. With all the cats set up with enough prey and their own safeguarded habitats, we were now free again to frolic around 24/7 on the big island. To our chagrin we already had annihilated the feral wolves, so for the rest of our stay we would have to make do with deer.

In between conditioning sessions we explored the big island and found many idyllic spots, the best one was halfway up the mountain. A swimming hole with super fresh water, constantly fed by a small waterfall. The swimming hole was big enough to leave an opening in the canopy, which bathed the whole clearing in soft green light. We spent a very enjoyable day and night ensconced in that clearing, playing in our natural pool until we joined together on the rock under the waterfall; the pounding water enhancing our already sensual experience.

Because of our link we didn't talk out loud a lot, real conversations dwindled more and more, because we didn't need it. The living room in our mental home was where we pondered our options for our coven. It was clear that Jasper should be the one to decide Alice's punishment, but we would be the ones giving him his options. We decided on the charges we would bring at her besides the tampering with mating bonds. When it started to become a very long list, too long really to list every single thing, we made categories and each of those had multiple points added to it. With meticulous attention we went through her manipulation records from the box, from the moment she became entangled with vampires as a human, until Bella lifted her memories in Italy. Concentrating on the coven for the most part, but including the trustworthy Denali's too. We were horrified when we finished, we tally marked each category and came to a total of fifty-eight-thousand-six-hundred and twenty-six instances of manipulation, all self-serving, all malicious toward the recipient or through the recipient toward somebody else. We even had several attempts against Marcus. Those had failed because he too had a very regulated mind, which helped us all to keep her out, it helped too that he was aware of her deceit before they met. He started his sweep of the family before they saw him, knowing about the manipulation again thwarted its effectiveness.

For a number of days we placed the cataloging of the infractions to a secondary track in our minds, while playing with a great white out in the ocean. He had tried to take a nibble out of my calf, but when he discovered that we were not edible he stayed around to watch us walk the seabed. He even gave us rides, pulling us with his dorsal fin. At least until he discovered we could swim faster than he could. We inspected our coral reef which was completely undisturbed and flourishing. We had a good laugh about a clown fish defending its eggs ferociously against Bella's prodding finger, unaware that that finger was attached to a gigantic being, at least to him. It was nice to come across all those sea creatures that were unbothered by us; the sea-mammals weren't so obliging. Their level of intelligence made them aware of our predator status. Bella found a way to observe the school of dolphins which roamed the ocean around our island. We just sat on the bottom frozen in place, never moving, playing rocks. We sat back to back giving us a three-sixty view around us through the link.

We just walked in from our ocean excursion, thinking about thoroughly testing our hot tub when my phone rang in the library. We had decided to leave all electronics there to keep them safe. I flitted to the top floor into the library, grabbing my phone.

"Hello?"

 _"Jeez, Edward since when don't you check caller ID?"_

"Hey Jazz, I just walked in from an excursion to our coral reef and some dolphin watching. You're lucky you got us at all."

 _"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt your honeymoon, but I need to talk to you both."_

"I'll put you on speaker; Bella is right next to me."

 _"I already told you that I didn't find the mating pull anymore. Well I've gone_ _over every memory I have from my time at the asylum_ _with a fine toothed comb._ _I've come to a very disturbing conclusion. My mating to Alice was never a mating at all. She conned me_ _,_ _in some way_ _,_ _into believing that she was my mate!"_

Bella had her hand on her throat but said, "Are you all right, Jazz?"

 _"Yes_ _,_ _Bella, I'm reasonably okay, but right now I'm alone on an extended hunting trip to the roughest of places. Alice never wants to go here, it doesn't play well with her designer clothes. But I'll need to act normal when I go home."_

We both snorted.

"Jazz, now that you have figured it out, we'll be coming home. You won't have to act at all. Can you stay out and meet us somewhere before going to the house?"

 _"Of course, I've been making all kinds of decisions on trivialities to throw Alice's visions off. Right now I think she believes me to have gone to a civil war re-enactment. I even checked the weather reports on Galveston. Because they actually are re-enacting the day and night which led to my vampirization and it's completely overcast for a week there. But for a meeting point, Edward do you know Packwood lake, on the west border of Goat Rocks?"_

"Yeah, I know it, it's not far from Forks but we will never run there when we hunt from the house. Too many population centers in between. Let's meet on the north end, there's a nice cave there right on the water's edge. It'll take Bella and I about two days to get there. We need to check on our live stock before we leave. Plus it's almost a day on the plane. I'll let you know when we've landed in Seattle."

 _"All righty, see you when you get there folks."_

* * *

Well, it looks like we're getting close to the first confrontation. Let me know what you think.

My recommendations this week are:

He Came Along by Hopesparkles. A period piece, a docward with an evil esmom, and an orphaned Bella. Ffn 9894117 and FP on her profile, Hopesparkles.

Haunting the Cullens by Fakin' it. What happens when a reader of the books get sucked into the Twilight dimension. A reader becomes an all knowing spectre advising the Cullens. Ffn 9510655

Teasers for this story will be posted on Fridays on the FaceBook group Bubbleybear and Pienuniek's Story Nook. groups/769231999887800/

Enjoy Reading

Pien


	4. Chapter 4 Confronting the Pixie

**Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer own Twilight I just play in her universe no copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Hey everybody, due to a powerfailure my beta was unable to send me this chapter on time. So it's another unbeta'd chapter. Any and all mistakes are mine.**

 **My thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear who went over this chapter three times this week with me to try and find the things Chandrakanta normally would weed out.**

 **We're back to Bella's pov, let's see what Jasper has to say, shall we?**

* * *

Chapter 4 Confronting the Pixie.

BPOV

It took us two full days to ready the island for departure, we had to keep the generator running on a lower setting, to keep the fences around the smaller islands electrified. Edward had found a portable ultrasound, that connected to his phone, and the female cats had submitted to him using it on them. It was so nice that we didn't have to tranquilize them to do it, Very worth the two weeks of conditioning. The result of the ultrasounds was even better. All females were pregnant. Each small island also had caught prey littered around; the captive reared cats had learned to hunt. Edward's example hunt to them had been enough.

After we left the island and anchored the ship at the Marina we chartered a jet to take us the quickest way back to Washington, we decided to travel under one of Edward's lesser known aliases, and he would pilot the plane himself. To hide in plain sight we filed a flight plan to Sea-Tac. The extra plus that we had was that it was close to Goat Rocks, as the vampire runs, and between Goat Rocks and Forks, safeguarding us from confrontations. We stored our luggage in the trunk of the car parked at Sea-Tac. We wandered through the adjacent neighborhood towards the forest, once ensconced in the trees, Edward shot Jasper another text telling him we were near. It took just seconds before he got the one word text: FINALLY. Edward chuckled and poured on the speed. I fell behind, just because he did it without warning, he slowed down for three paces, I caught up and he grabbed my hand. We ran together, following the map in Edward's mind. After about a quarter of an hour at our extensive speed we burst out of the trees at the north end of Packwood Lake.

Jasper froze in his pacing. "Damn, you two are fast; you were blurs even to my eyes."

He then turned around and sauntered to a big log lying near the water, he plopped down on it gentle enough for the old log to stay intact. He gestured to the log nearby which was long enough to hold the two of us. We sat down and he took a deep breath before it all came out in a rush.

"You guys are the only ones to know the truth of it, I've been thinking long and hard and the conclusions I had to come to were disturbing. For two thirds of my vampire existence I've been duped, hoodwinked, betrayed... by the person I trusted the most, nothing about it was real, it has to have been a farce from the start. I finally recalled all my memories from the asylum, I told you I never felt bloodlust towards her, but it's not true... Somehow she overwrote it. If I go second by second over the moments I met her, she was so happy to see me that first night. I came in to take her blood according to her chart; she needed to be bled three times a month. You know the funny part? I did that for three weeks, I drank her blood, never going into a frenzy a normal vampire would have gone into with his human found mate. Her blood was bland, and became even more bland as time passed. Eventually it didn't taste like anything and I just stopped drinking it. When I revealed myself to her she immediately sprang on the bandwagon and told me to go and feed off animals, that I wouldn't be bound to the asylum to get human blood the humanitarian way.

"I then searched and searched every bit of our time together to find the true mating bond I've felt between Carlisle and Esme, Emmett and Rosalie, I'm not counting you two because your bond is so special I didn't even believe it possible when Bella's heart stopped beating. Something happened then to sync your feelings. Ever since that moment you two have been perfectly synchronized, as far as I can feel at least. Never mind, I never felt a mating bond toward Alice, absolutely never! So how can I ever have thought she was my human found mate? That's why I saved her from death by electrocution. I'm totally confused; I think it might be a side effect of her power. Somehow her predictions are forced on us. Well on all of us except Bella, and now you too, Edward, because of your personal shield, I think."

While Jasper rambled on and on getting everything out I dove into his subconscious, creating the toxic waste dumpster that I needed and clearing out every sign in his mind. The forest of half activated and deactivated signs here was even thicker than in Edward's mind. The last signs I destroyed were the very old ones creating a fake mating bond and suppressing his bloodlust. Removal of the fake mating bond sprouted an entire new forest of the same sign. To my horror I heard Jasper starting to backtrack, thinking he was after all truly mated. I torched the dumpster eradicating all the original signs. Thank goodness that worked, the forest of activated baby signs died down. When I left his subconscious, Jasper had stopped his pacing—when did he get up?—and looked me in the eyes.

"Bella, what have you done?" Jasper asked. "Your eyes glazed over and suddenly my mind is clear of doubts. I can see every manipulation she subjected me to. Damn, that's it! She's got an ability to manipulate! Hell, the bitch did it to us all, and you, Bella, saw through her on day one! We really should listen to your hunches more, girl!"

Edward and I sat laughing at his rant.

"Jasper, sit down, I'll explain. Marcus is Edward's mentor; we met with him almost every day when we were in Italy. He taught us about the vampire mind. When Didyme was killed and he was imprisoned by Chelsea's power he went inward to be free. He discovered an extra layer of consciousness for vampires. Humans have it too but it's closed off. Vampire powers and abilities use that layer; it's where Chelsea's gift binds us, from where Alec paralyzes your senses. My power of borrowing powers has evolved since I became a full vampire. By using Edward's power I can plunge into the subconscious of any vampire and assess what's in there. Most of it still goes over my head, it's a very surreal place. You, for instance, have a blue glowing statue of Edward and I standing under a spotlight in a corner. No idea what it means, but we're flattered.

"I've found that Alice's ability plants signs in that subconscious bit of mind. Luckily the moment a person becomes aware of the manipulation the signs start to wither. Somehow knowledge of her ability renders you immune, you were encased in her schemes the most, she needed you to become a vampire. Alice is, like Aro, a certified megalomaniac. Her goals are different though, she wants to be Queen B. Her mind has stayed juvenile, because she never really grew up, because she never tried to look further than her own visions of grandeur. She tried to get all of you to follow her lead to that elevated goal. Being society's biggest flowers. She wasn't happy with this withdrawn life on the fringes of society.

"Damn, my mind went off on its own again. Okay Jasper, tell us what you've noticed."

Jasper and Edward both sat with their mouths hanging open. I nudged Edward through the link; he knew how my mind worked, even if it caught him off guard every now and then. He gave Jasper a real nudge.

"What? Oh... Yeah, well, I now am sure the mating bond isn't real and almost every action from the moment I met her was in one way or another orchestrated. I think, because I haven't gone over it yet, that very little of my reactions weren't in some way guided. Let's see, what about me does Alice really hate. My past, or my lingering interest in it, the Civil War. The way I like to dress, she would have me in a three piece suit with starched shirts if I hadn't had to play a high school student. Shit, let me be honest, she really doesn't like me at all, and since I reprimanded her and set limits around Christmas, backing Carlisle and Esme, she's been a downright hag. I have to presume I'm just a patsy to her."

Edward sat next to him and slung an arm around his shoulders, it had to be downright agonizing that two thirds of your existence had been nothing more than a fraud.

"Jasper, let this be the first day of the rest of your life. Look forward, at least you have a coven who love you just the way you are. You're a brilliant historian, help us help Marcus. Do you want to be a member of the Masen coven?" Edward said to him.

Jasper's head shot up, "What are you saying, are you breaking away from the family?"

"No, remember all Alice's schemes? The family is one of them, that's what's she has planted in all of us. We never truly were a family. I was and always will be the leader of this coven. Carlisle can't do it, he's too passive, his merit is being a doctor. I won't take that away from him, but he'll have to choose. Marcus is going to take over as soon as possible, but that's going to take a lot of work. When he takes over I'll be asked to help him out. Bella and I agree that we need to do that. So if Carlisle wants to stay a part of my coven he'll have to leave his human facade behind. Esme will follow him, she can't do anything else, their bond is true. Rose and Emmett will follow Bella everywhere; they already gave us their word to become part of the Masen coven. Simply because they admire her. So what do you say?"

"Yes, of course, damn man, you're the closest thing I have to a brother and even though you have been a morose bastard for a very long time, I like what you've become now that you're mated. I still have some questions though. I sense something more between the two of you, more than a simple mating bond. I've never seen a mated couple so in sync, it's as if you know what the other is doing even when you're apart. What is this?"

Quickly Edward and I conferred to tell him at least part of the truth, he was the only one who could pick up on it. We agreed to tell him about the link. Edward took the honors.

"Okay, let's see if I can explain it. When Bella's heart stopped beating something happened. I could hear her mind but not through my power, to shock us even more she could hear my mind. You know how my power works, I only hear thoughts, no emotion attached, when I hear Bella her emotions _are_ attached. The moment she became a full vampire we became linked. This link has no limit. Right now the largest distance we had between us was from Forks to Seattle, but Marcus, who saw our link, told us a little more about it. Because everything between us goes through the link, it's impossible to influence it; for instance Chelsea won't be able to break us up, no matter how hard she tries, I know she would never try it but she can sever normally mated couples. To let you in even more, Bella can use my power at will, she's lucky though; she can stop using it too."

"I KNEW IT!" Jasper roared enthusiastically. "You, Bella, were far too easy going all those days Edward went to Seattle before Christmas. Even though I stayed away from the house to avoid Alice's tantrums, I noticed sometimes how you'd look at me with that look on your face identical to Edward when he's listening intently. So, you two gave up privacy completely, you're in each other's minds constantly?"

"Essentially, yes, but we've both created a room where we can keep things private. We like to keep surprises possible, you know." Edward told him with a smirk. "Even though I still need to repair the door from when Bella rescued me out of the last reeling up of those damn signs Alice planted."

"I never broke it down, you know, if it is broken you did it yourself. I've rid both of your minds of all those pesky little signs and the big ones for that matter. The big red dumpster with bio hazard signs on it is still parked in both your subconscious minds. Don't worry they're closed down hermetically.

"I'd like to go over our options now, when we reach something that needs explaining, we go over it then. I don't want to pressure you Jasper, but the whole bunch is expecting us home tomorrow afternoon. We need to use your expertise in strategizing."

Edward jumped in, "I need to tell Jasper one more thing, love, he needs to know." he said with a pointed look towards Jasper, "Okay, Jasper, my power has evolved also since our mating. It has become stronger. You know how people kept me out of their head before?"

"Yeah, never saw the use of it, but they flooded their front track with nonsense."

"Yep, that's what I'm talking about. It's an obsolete method now, I can pick and choose which track I'd like to read and record the others at the same time. All of that with a little power boost from my fantastic mate over there." He said while pointing to me.

"Damn, you're the perfect spy now! Edward, we're the only people who will ever know about this, do I make myself clear, your link, both of your power boosts, everything about that needs to be guarded as the most classified information ever! Okay, let's form a plan to rid ourselves of a pesky pixie."

It was quite clear that any affection Jasper might have had for Alice had flown out of the window with burning feathers. Not only did he want her to just leave, he wanted to annihilate her. His ideas were very interesting, but ultimately too much to get the rest of the coven to follow. We talked shop all day, and formulated plans for every contingency. During all of this I made sure that Jasper was in the loop of what happened inside of Edward and my minds, or mind to be honest. We had remodeled it to one big house with the possibility to split it back into two when the need arose. The only need that could ever make it split was a confrontation with Aro's power. Of course we each had our own room for privacy, and an area where we had our power centre.

All the T's crossed and all the I's dotted, we broke up camp. Jasper went straight home, and we went for a quick hunt. I found out that the tropical deer we had on the island were tastier than the pair of white tail I caught. We took our time returning to the house, to give Jasper time to disassociate himself from us. When we thought we wouldn't give anything away, we returned to the car and drove at a leisurely pace to the Cullen estate. When the Welcome to Forks sign came into view Edward floored the accelerator, driving like he always did. I boosted his power, and we soon picked up the thoughts from the family.

Rose was exited her sister and brother would be home soon. Carlisle and Esme both were delighted, their eldest son returning from his honeymoon made the familial facade even more idyllic. Emmett hoped we would bring back nice souvenirs for everyone. Jasper's thoughts were busy with Alice, for one last time he played the doting mate. He coaxed her with sweet nothings to come downstairs and act happy to see us. Then Alice's thoughts burst into our collective brain.

 _'Those good for nothing spoilers are home, damn bastards. While I still have work to do to bring the rest of the family back to heel. Somehow my hints don't seem to work anymore, but they were definitely outside of the bitch's shield. If I have to believe Emmett, they were on the other side of the world. Oh well, let's charm the pants off all of them. Maybe I should simply hold back for a while, then_ _,_ _when their guards are down_ _,_ _I can try again.'_

"At least we know she'll never get a chance to do that." Edward laughed out loud, while turning into the drive at top speed. We barreled along the winding path, to come to a dead stop in front of the porch steps. Edward flew from the car and flitted around; he opened my door with a flourish and helped me from the vehicle; always my gentleman. Jasper was the first on the porch; he gave us a smirk and dove towards the trunk to get our bags. We walked into the living room and took the love-seat next to the fireplace.

It was a statement, normally Carlisle and Esme sat there to show their head of family status. Edward now wanted us to be the coven leaders. He stood still as a statue next to me seated just as frozen. We were both listening to the frazzled thoughts of our coven members. Normally Carlisle would start the meeting and then give the person who asked for the meeting the floor. The deviation in the seating arrangements had thrown him off. He didn't know what to do now; thankfully, he reverted to his stand-by behavior, he kept silent and observed. Esme sat next to him, wringing her hands, her mom-senses told her something was off. Rose looked at us expectantly; her thoughts showed that she suspected that we had spoken to Jasper. She had also observed him, while we were away, and noticed his changing behavior. Emmett was exited for stories of our honeymoon, because none of them knew where we went. He was almost desperate to hear our escapades. He was imagining all kinds of soft porn on historical landmarks all over the world. Edward frowned at him and his thoughts immediately became apologetic, stating he was just so damn exited to hear where we went. Jasper's thoughts were subdued, he still felt guilty about what we were going to do. I hijacked his power and with a subtle nudge helped his determination and outrage at being played for so long.

The final person I assessed was the object of this meeting, Alice. Her thoughts were bored; she was completely oblivious to what was coming. Her standard running through the newest designer clothes, as a block, in place. It was a pity that Edward and I had long since figured out how to avoid those easy kind of blocks. Her inner musings were interesting and revealing to say the least. She was trying to work her hidden, until now, ability on Jasper and Carlisle. As an afterthought she urged Emmett to push vulgar thoughts on Edward. Her personal track told us of her disdain for the, as she imagined, common honeymoon we would have chosen.

Edward told me to go into the subconscious levels of everyone's mind, and eliminate all the manipulative signs. Changing the latest ones to defensive ones, making sure everyone was protected against Alice's, sure to come, blunt attacks. He wanted me to do that while he would slowly lay out our case.

"We're home, as you all can see, we had a wonderful time at La Bella Isla our personal island... We had time to truly indulge in our newly mated status, and were also busy making plans for our future. The future of our coven. Going over all the information we gathered; showing us the true worth of every member. We talked with our mentor a lot, he informed us of the most shocking fact we found out..."

I told him I had safe-guarded all minds, by placing a negative mirror in each subconscious. Making sure that all manipulations would rebound on her in the opposite way she intended them. If I was right, her subconscious would become completely vulnerable.

"The fact that one of the members of this coven is a gold-digging, manipulative imposter!"

Complete and utter silence greeted us after he dropped that bombshell, in the mental as well as the physical department. Only Jasper had some thoughts running through his head, he was actually quite amused, running over all the signs he had noticed over the last few months again. To him it had become clear when my power lessened the effect of Alice's influence.

"WHAT?... WHO?..." Emmett bellowed, immediately ready to restrain the culprit.

"Let me start with the biggest infraction... Meddling with mating connections. This started before any of us knew each other. Or at least the rest of us did."

I was monitoring Alice's thoughts, and as soon as he mentioned the mating connections, she became frantic. In a moment she started to push out desperate manipulating thoughts towards Jasper. Everything that went through her mind was now being stored on the camera in my pocket. I still didn't know how I did it, but it seemed as if my wish to record made it happen.

"The culprit knew about all of us, and worked to design a perfect world. Guided by dreams, knowledge of the supernatural came effortlessly. The only problem with the dreams was the fact that they only showed her our coven, but no connections to her were there. She knew she had to become like us, to make a chance to be able to use us."

Alice now not only had frantic thoughts, but she looked it too. Jasper remained unaffected by her desperate attempts at dominating him. The others just looked shocked.

"Bella, hijacked Aro's power when we were in Volterra and stored every memory she ever had."

Alice exploded, "You're lying, that's impossible; we all had to hide our powers when we were there!"

"YOU dare to call me a liar? YOU who deceived us for almost sixty years! We now know you lied about your miserable childhood. We know you saw it was impossible to terrorize your birth family any longer. We KNOW you bled your parents dry, you discovered your way into eternity in your dreams. YOU made sure to be committed; strategy in place to make sure the vampire working there would change you, by posing as his mate. You knew you had an ability to manipulate people; it's what you had used to ruin your family. A few talks with Jasper and your manipulations were in place, you stifled his bloodlust, and a few days later you overwrote his free will and pushed a mating idea on him. Even as a human your control of your ability was strong; Jasper completely forgot the scent of your blood, he was duped into believing you were his mate."

"I never planned a thing; I just made use of the situation I found myself in." Alice almost pleaded.

Jasper cut across her with a menacing expression. "Shut up, Alice, and do nothing. You don't get to plead for mercy, we never got that from you either!" He was playing his role of jilted lover perfectly.

To our astonishment she turned meek and answered placidly, "Yes, Jasper."

I dove into her mind again, looking for what it was, deception or true submission... I was just in time to hijack one of her visions, and I was glad I took it from her completely, because it showed her the big hole in our whole accusation. We couldn't force her to stay until sentencing. We decided we wouldn't sink to her level. We would lay out all her infractions and have the whole coven decide what would come of her. Her mind was peaceful on the surface, anxious underneath, and her sub-conscious was dominated by one of her own signs... It simply stated she had to obey Jasper. I was elated, she wanted to dominate Jasper, and my improvised defense had worked; her wish to dominate had reversed into forcing her into submission. It wasn't deceitfulness or genuine submission; it was a taste of her own medicine.

"After Jasper changed her, she took a few years to get used to her power, and the stronger way her ability worked. That's when she discovered that she could reactivate or strengthen the manipulations by saying a catch-phrase. Always steering them closer to our coven. Making sure the both of them were strong enough to keep on the humanitarian diet.

"She assessed us through her visions, and decided her way of action. Because we were totally unprepared, she was able to manipulate us quite easily. She disposed of me as coven leader by calling us a family and slotting me in the role of youngest son. She used Emmett to demean me, that is why he always took his teasing a step, or six, too far. She implanted the unhealthy urge to be parents at all costs into Carlisle and Esme, enhancing their latent wishes. Rose was less impressionable, and her efforts only had a slight effect on her. Only Rose's genuine wish for a sister was enhanced to make sure she complied."

Alice found the strength to shake herself out of her submissive stupor, her thoughts were still very anxious, but the beginnings of a plan ran around in her head. The problem was that for the first time, in her mind, her visions wouldn't corroborate her ideas. The decision to play hardball flashed to the forefront of her thoughts, and she immediately **acted.**

"You and Bella think you have it all worked out, don't you? This is your way of taking over the coven. Just because your precious little semi-vampire tells you so, Edward, you cave and destroy what we build in the last sixty years. I have always worked for the best of this family, but nooooooo that isn't good enough. You need to relax my standards, to walk around like the trash you truly are. Now let me make it perfectly clear, I HAVE SEEN..."

* * *

 **Well what is the deranged pixie up to? Please let me know your ideas, either in a review or through our Facebook group. Bubbleybear and Pienuniek's Story Nook.** **groups/769231999887800/**

 **I'd like to recommend two stories again this week. I went with mysteries, here they are.**

 **Wild! by Peppahlouie. A story of awakening love with growing mysteries and a lot of cooking. A delicious chefward. Ffn 6655429**

 **Buried by ericastwilight. A FBIward and a psychicella on the trail of a serial killer who's after Bella lookalikes and her loved ones. Ffn 10317577**

 **That's it for this week.**

 **Enjoy reading, please review,**

 **Pien**


	5. Chapter 5 Sentencing

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Once again I need to advise you that all mistakes in this chapter are mine, as it's not beta'd yet.**

 **my thanks go out to Bubbleybear and Chandrakanta for helping me to become a better writer.**

 **Well, let's see what Alice's 'vision' was about, shall we?**

* * *

PARALLAX

Chapter 5 Sentence.

EPOV

After Alice's statement everybody stood around watching her and waiting for what she might have seen. Of course she never saw a thing; she forcefully tried to reactivate her decades old manipulations. The problem for her was that all those signs rested inside a big red dumpster, with a hazmat sign on it, in Bella's vault of a mind. The only people with access to that vault were Bella and myself. Alice looked around and couldn't find a friendly eye in the room. Even Esme had a look of disgust on her face.

Bella took over from me, while I started monitoring the thoughts of the coven, something which I knew I hadn't had to do while stating the beginnings of the case.

"Now, I will state your infractions against Edward specifically. Rosalie told us all that Edward had to be seen as a rape victim, over ninety percent of his assaults were encouraged by Alice. We've got the evidence out of her own memories; she manipulated skanks at every high school into throwing themselves at him. She even pretended to lose a bunch of pictures, all of which had a bare chested Edward in them. You can all imagine how the accuracy of their mental trysts with him went up dramatically, making them exponentially more painful for him."

Rose's mind exploded into rage, she had immense trouble keeping her vampire-self in check. That side wanted to rip Alice into tiny pieces. Rape, mental or real, was a hard limit for her. To find out that one of our own had facilitated the decades long rape of her brother almost sent her into a frenzy. Jasper felt her emotions and clamped his hand on her shoulder, flooding her with calming vibes.

"The pinnacle of her depravity was, however, the fact that she took several steps to ensure Tanya's continuous assaults on Edward." Bella continued. "She provided her with accurate images of his naked backside. She manipulated her into thinking she truly had a shot at him. The sad thing is that she only needed a very weak incentive to send Tanya into a decades long pursuit of him. Tanya's very disturbed mind ran with it from then on.

"Think about it, Tanya tried to win him over, even before Alice and Jasper joined the coven, but she became relentless after they did. I made Edward do a side by side comparison of her tries before and after. Before she thought she could gently nudge him into kissing her, caressing her. After, she went full on porn on him, from abuse to rape. Alice is the catalyst for Edward's standoffish attitude, his loneliness and dejection.

"Then she used Emmett to alienate him even more from his own coven. This time to implement her idea of family, to make sure Edward couldn't act out his legitimate claim as coven leader. She replaced him with puppets. Sorry, Carlisle, Esme, I'm the first to acknowledge you two act like perfect parents. And you Esme are my mother in every way possible, besides biological, but you're not for the rest of them. That was all acting to fit in.

"Alice created her ideal world, endless amounts of money, the best clothes and unlimited power over all of you. Then Edward found me, and my latent shield held her manipulations at bay. At first she was very accommodating, hoping to enlarge her subject count by one. Because that's what she saw in her mind, Alice as the Queen with her loyal and submissive subjects. Acting out the family image she envisioned. Deciding every little thing happening in the, so called, family. But as soon as I became a part of the dynamics her pretty little kingdom started to crumble, I wasn't susceptible to manipulation. I questioned her visions the first day I was here. By altering Edward's outlook on life, by just being in it, I unlocked his shackles.

"All of you have witnessed her deteriorating attitude and her profound dislike of me. Then I became the center of attention, I was changing and the most frightening, I had a power which made her vulnerable. That power helped me boost Edward's power, he no longer was blocked by superficial reciting of irritating facts. He could dive right through and read the tracks behind the block. To top it off, Marcus taught him to access the subconscious tracks of the mind. He discovered peculiar signs there, but his conscious mind couldn't make head nor tails from the strange images the sub-conscious showed him. So we discussed it, and the next time we were together, I borrowed his power and took a look for myself.

"The images there showed me that, even if she wasn't aware of it, Alice's manipulations manifested themselves there and worked as subliminal messages. Luckily for all of you, they were less than permanent. I was easily able to change them, and make them work for you in a positive way. They weren't permanent because Alice never tried to understand her ability, I think. She simply knew she had it and abused the hell out of it, didn't you, Alice? Everything you have ever done was for your own gain. To better your prospects at greatness, in your eyes. Whomever you needed to tread down or torture to get there was inconsequential."

Bella had to stop, overcome with emotions. Even though she was immune to the effects of Alice's ability, didn't mean she didn't feel the pain from those who weren't. And that was the big difference between the two. I wrapped her tight in my arms, sitting down next to her. It was time to deal out justice. I kissed Bella's head, and noticed her acceptance. Of course she was in my mind; it was our default state now. I let her know I would take over again, and felt her nod into my chest. I pierced Alice with a vicious glare.

"You, Alice Brandon, have victimized everybody in this room. And for what? To wrap yourself in illusions of grandeur; to bask in a false sense of being the best. Bella has been refuting everything you did for the last year, but you learned nothing. Now we're all immune to your exploits and looking around, I'm inclined to think none of us want you anymore. But two of us have the biggest say in what will happen to you. The one with the biggest claim is Jasper. After he's given his idea about your punishment, Bella and I will give you mine. Then the rest may give amendments, we'll come to a mutual agreement. That will become your punishment."

Jasper's thoughts went over scenarios to make her feel the most of his pain for herself. Much the same as I was. Rose's ideas of punishment were creative and bloody good, I nodded to her smirking. My mind was suddenly assaulted by some sort of nursery rhyme from Emmett. He imagined singing loud and very off key, while happily burning her one piece at the time, all while making her watch each and every part disappear along with a piece of her extensive wardrobe. He had to peel her apart a tiny slither at the time to have enough pieces to burn every part of clothing she owned.

Rose, suddenly burst forward. "You conniving little bitch! You reduced MY mate to a sniveling toddler. You forced him to make my brother miserable with actions which were the most vile. Yes, we found out about your steering of him. After you bashed all cheer out of Edward's birthday and made the guest of honor run out in pain through my man, did you truly think we wouldn't find out? Emmett has just as good a memory as we all have. He might be a little lower on the IQ scale than our coven leaders. Aren't we all? He found out, by painstakingly going through his memories, that you planted the idea that no reaction meant Edward was blocking him. He never knew that even if Edward doesn't listen all thoughts are stored. Together we found a way to hold off the forced taunts which were thrown his way. Conveniently just when you were in earshot and that little fact gave you away, you see you were the only one always close when Emmett got the urge to bash Edward. Alright so was Edward, but I don't think he would have ever induced the bashing of himself. I hope Jasper comes up with a good and painful punishment; I have some amendments to make it worse. Come on, Em, let's go I've got some shopping to do."

Rose took Emmett's hand and towed him out of the house, mentally telling us she was going to buy Alice her new wardrobe befitting her new stature in the world. Well at least she thought long term existence for Alice, long term suffering. It took three seconds before we could hear Emmett's jeep start up and race down the drive. Jasper asked us when he should reveal his grand scheme for Alice's punishment. Bella sauntered over to him, wrapping him in a hug and sending him patience. We couldn't talk out loud to each other, but we devised a way to answer him, non-verbal. Sending the emotions we meant, plus tapping out Morse code on his back. Of course if a hug didn't work we could always text from our pocket. Vampire precision made it possible to type fault free on a touch screen without looking. Bella tapped him in that Carlisle and Esme still hadn't made up their minds.

Esme's thoughts pushed all the others out, she began questioning me mentally. I kept to the usual way of answering, I nodded and shook my head. Esme was worried, she didn't fathom the depravity I was made privy to by Tanya and Emmett on Alice's secret instruction. So she sketched scenarios for me to give my score on. Every one began with the question, was it worse than this. When she had gone through several tame bedroom scenes she brought on sedate BDSM. I didn't think she would get the idea. So I had to verbalize it.

"Esme, they had scenes with golden showers and scat, with me on the receiving end. But what was worse, was the endless nature of the images I truly loathed. I couldn't escape, other than leaving alone to hunt."

Esme's mind went blank, more accurately her mind filled with question marks, she had no idea what I told her. Suddenly I was drawn away by something Bella picked up; she was lifting one of Alice's visions. Alice stood, still trying to force her visions to work in her favor, it didn't work, the only things she saw were the ideas everyone made decisions on. It was a horrible mix of secondhand clothes, being ripped apart one slither at the time, being forced to watch her wardrobe go up in smoke. Her visions spiraled and kept her frozen in place it seemed. She looked like a statue impersonating fear.

Carlisle's thoughts trickled into my listening track. He was pondering vampire discipline over the ages, things he picked up during his time with the Volturi. A lot of it was a memory of Caius lecturing him on his exploits over the ages. Suddenly a Technicolor video of a vampire strung up spread eagle in the middle of a room. Smart that, because he had no way of finding leverage to use his strength. The next bit was more disconcerting, the anonymous vampire was flogged. To my utter astonishment the flogger left visible marks on his back! I heard Caius' voice droning on from behind Carlisle, _'As you can see, the werewolf intestine flogger with embedded bone and teeth fragments are very effective punishment tools for vampires.'_

The image was discarded with a viciousness attached to it. Carlisle didn't like that option; his thoughts were wry when he thought to himself that we didn't have the necessary implements. He knew he had to take hold of himself and for once set aside his passive attitude. He came up totally blank, his doctors oath standing in the way of hurting a person, even if the person wasn't human. His convoluted thoughts then tried to come up with amendments to the big punishment Jasper and I would deal out.

Esme was completely occupied by her gardens on the surface, because Bella wasn't boosting me I couldn't look beneath the surface. While Rose and Emmett were out we couldn't go through with the rest of the proceedings. Bella sat down on the couch, and started telling them about our island, how we conditioned the cats and how the whole island ran off natural self-contained energy. She told of our 'hunt' where we got caught in the tree; she never divulged the erotic nature of that episode though.

I was monitoring Alice closely; she was fuming because she had never known about my numerous aliases. Her subduing me into a meek follower, as she had thought, had as effect that she never thought about, how my finances were streamlined. The revelation that I bought Bella a substantial island and a luxury motor yacht, made her suddenly realize that she wasn't the smartest of us all, that her visions had let her down; more even, that she hadn't used her visions in a smart way, by always steering them. She had always skipped over visions of me managing my finances. Just because she couldn't be bothered to know where the money came from as long as she could spend it.

Bella was just starting to explain more about our cats breeding program and the secure little islands for each species, when the tell-tale crunch of the jeep on the gravel driveway made all of us shoot out of our seats, Alice's mind had gone into overdrive focusing on reactivating her hold on Jasper. I stood next to him and tapped her intent to his hip. He thought about it for a few minutes when he thought to Bella if he should act like it worked. The imperceptible nod she gave him came with a mental explanation to me.

 _'Edward, when he acts reachable she'll calm down a bit. Right now she's a powder-keg with a lit fuse. I tried to tap into her visions but it was one big mess, I think her panic has made it go awry. She only has doomsday visions, everything the family intends for her to receive is whirling around in her head. So if Jasper starts to act like he reacts to her attempts to reestablish her control, she might stay somewhat composed.'_

I added my nod to Bella's, and Jasper shot into action the moment Rose and Emmett walked into the room with a duffle bag the only evidence they actually went shopping. I texted them Jasper's act from my pocket. Carlisle and Esme would have to find out on their own. Rose and Em knew that once the signs were deactivated and the recipient knew about the manipulations, they couldn't be reactivated anymore. Rose read her text openly, and squealed a little adding something about one of her express orders would arrive the next day. Rubbing it in Alice's face once again she was still banned from spending money. Em was smart; he quickly checked his phone behind Alice's back, when he dropped the duffle near the stairs behind her. He gave a nod to Jasper.

Alice was now over exerting herself with pushing her commands toward Jasper. He went to her biting back his disgust and asking Bella to help him with his own power. She pushed some possessiveness and sisterly love his way, while closing down his ability to him. He wouldn't be able to react when her fierce glee of succeeding would flood him; his ire was too big for that to leave him impassive. He succeeded in calming Alice down with some seemingly loving touches. He stood close behind her, as much to restrain her as well as to calm her.

His sudden reversal was too much for Esme, her mind exploded into rage; a newborn severity rage. Without so much as a directed thought in her mind she stormed upstairs. Just seconds later an enormous ruckus started coming from the second floor. Bella and Carlisle were the first to react, followed on their heels by Rose and me. From my periphery I saw Jasper grabbing hold of Alice and I could sense him following me. On the second floor landing Bella and Carlisle stood with a baffled look on their face, Rose was nowhere to be seen, as was Esme, but the hallway was filling up with crap at a very high speed. Smashed knick-knacks, a broken pink desk, then an enormous pile of clothes came flying out of Alice's room. I located Rose's thoughts and through her eyes I saw that they were ripping the room apart. Rose was emptying the room sized closet of Alice's clothes. Esme was ripping the pink bedding from the bed.

The indignant emotions coming from Alice could be sensed without Jasper's gift; through his eyes I saw he still had a strong grip on her. He held her still but she was literally vibrating to explode.

"GOD DAMN IT, ESME! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO..."

Jasper clamped his hand over Alice's mouth. From the room a roaring Esme answered.

"MARY ALICE, that's enough! For once in your existence act like the grown up you try to emulate. You emotionally-stunted-spoiled-little-brat, you need to learn some humility. You're not the Queen B in this coven anymore!"

Esme appeared in the door opening, and leveled a murderous glare on Alice, which actually made her shrink back a little.

"Thank you, Jasper. You Miss Brandon don't have any privileges in this house any more. That means no room, no clothes, nothing! I don't know what my sons have planned for you, but you are restricted to the common rooms! This small palace will be a nice room for Jasper, next to the tiny office you had him confined to. You have emasculated him long enough! Even I get nauseous in here; there isn't a male thing inside besides his clothes. Now, Emmett can you get this crap outside? That's the fastest route!" She said pointing to the window at the end of the hallway.

"Oh, Esme, we can open the window here too!" Rose called from the room.

In less than five minutes the room was stripped bare, leaving only the bed frame and mattress. Esme grabbed Alice's arm and dragged her halfway down the stairs stopping at the hot pink wall hanging in mixed techniques; a gruesome abomination in my opinion.

"This amateurish home project, which cost us a bundle, was hung here over my expressed dismay, because it was 'delightfully pink'" Esme ranted air-quoting the last two words. Her next action was to rip the atrocity from the wall, ripping it in two and pushing it into Alice's hands. "You carry your own trash! People, go through the common rooms and get all the clutter out of here! My vision of soothing beach colors has to be restored! I hate pink, garish colors, doilies, frilly things, well anything Alicy! And she's going to carry it all, tie it to her if necessary, but she's the one who's carrying it to the pire outside!"

Emmett whooped and flew around the living room gathering doilies from the couch and chairs, picking up a few of the frilly throw-pillows too. Carlisle strode into his office and came out with another six bright green frilly cushions; I had always looked at those as being misplaced and they were, Alice had even invaded his personal space. Rose ran into her own room and came out with a stack of folded plastic bags, when she started to unfold them it showed that they were all from high-end stores.

"I'll make it easier on you, Mary Alice, I'll put everything in familiar bags, so it's easier to hold. You're getting all your crap handed to you, just like you like it!"

Bella's thoughts came to the forefront of my mind, she told me that she had hijacked Alice's power, just so she couldn't find a way out. My clever mate in action. Jasper notified me that Alice was dangerously close to a panic-attack and that his power did next to nothing to calm her. I texted him to keep a hold on her physically, because if she went into a rage we would need his expertise in handling her. This whole thing drove itself now, we needed to steer it to our wished outcome. The Volturi would execute her; we didn't think we needed to go that far. Every cluttering item, every garish ornament was gathered into the bags, Alice was loaded with those bags and then she was escorted outside, where her whole life lay in shambles. I was surprised to see her Porsche on the bottom of the pile, barely. Esme and Carlisle made her drop her bags on the pile, which she did, reluctantly.

Jasper took control of the group.

"Okay, y'all, we're here to _decide_ Alice's fate! We're _not_ a lynch mob! Right now it seems that we've all agreed that all of her possessions are forfeit. It's now time for Edward and I to come to an agreement what her main punishment will be. Edward, your suggestions, please."

"The traditional sentence for tampering with mating bonds is execution, however when we execute her she will not be punished for torturing all of us for decades. Because torture it was, ever since I've become free of her influence, I feel like a new person. I know that part of that, a big part, is because of Bella, but my mind has become free. I digress, I've been tortured by her design for over fifty years, that's more than half of my existence! I think letting her suffer for a long time, too, would be my true idea of punishment. That idea comes to banishment from the coven, with exactly the amount of money she brought into the family, which is nothing! All assets brought in by the couple were originally Jasper's. Deducting further that they were never mated, means that she's got nothing at all. Jasper, your choices are banishment or execution."

The coven-members all stood by a vibrating Alice who now looked almost green; I never knew a vampire could look nauseous. Her thoughts had her once again frozen in place. She still hadn't noticed that Bella was blocking her power. It wouldn't be long now; I had narrowed her destinies down to two. She should get an idea of her possible futures. Aaaand three, two, one... there was the Bella oriented temper tantrum.

"YOU STUPID BITCH, I TOLD YOU THAT YOU WOULD NEVER STEAL MY POWER AGAIN!"

She tried to attack Bella, who expected it and had wrapped Emmett in a green tendril already. She grabbed Alice's shoulders and bitch slapped her hard; Alice's cheek and forehead cracked.

"Alice, understand one thing right now! You don't have any rights or privileges in this coven anymore! I closed off your power to prevent you from escaping. That is my right as one of the coven leaders. Yes, you pedantic-megalomaniacal-childish-bitch, you're no longer in control; you're the bottom of the pile! When you're either thrown out or torn to pieces, you're not even part of the coven anymore and you know what? It's your own damn fault; you simply crossed every line in the book for your own gain. You even went as far as to tamper with the mating bond! So shut up and listen to your verdict."

Jasper had brought her once again to the middle of our circle. He now stood facing her, letting go, he took a deep breath.

"Alice, we're all agreed upon your infractions, those of the law and those of simple inter person cordiality. Now it's time for you to truly hear your fate. I, Jasper Whitlock, denounce our bond and sentence you to banishment from the coven. At the moment that is with the clothes on your back and nothing more. The rest of your punishment will be amended by the rest of the coven."

Rose and Emmett stepped toward her and Rose spoke up,

"Alice, the amendment to your punishment by Emmett will be the fiery destruction of your possessions. My amendment is you get that duffel bag to take with you, but these clothes you're wearing now will be added to the pile and replaced by those in the duffel. Come along and change."

She grabbed Alice's arm and dragged her to the downstairs bathroom, Esme slipped in with her but stepped outside almost immediately when we all heard the ripping of fabric from the bathroom. Rose's thoughts came to me amused.

 _'You're gonna like this, the underwear and bra are cotton value packs from Walmart and the rest is thrift store, the total cost including the duffel and a second set of over clothes was thirty-five dollars.'_

Three minutes later, after quite a few groans and beginnings of protests from Alice, they emerged. Bella and I both bit the inside of our cheeks to keep from laughing, when Alice appeared in truly worn down jeans, a size too big; a frayed brandless t-shirt in a poop-yellow, almost two sizes too big; formerly white sport socks and a pair of cheap sneakers, like the ones Bella had when we met. Emmett wasn't as considerate; he was rolling on the ground laughing.

"Now you're the reject of the group," he hiccupped, "don't think I didn't find those were your remarks too! Now you look like the bum you really are!"

Carlisle stepped in decisively and ripped her Cullen necklace from her neck.

"This here is a privilege," he said shaking the necklace in her face, "we opened our arms to you and you spit in our faces! Learn some humility, but don't think you'll ever be invited back into our coven!"

Esme stepped beside Carlisle, "I might have been a tad premature, but my amendment has already been completed. The complete eradication of your presence in this house. All of what you brought in here has been thrown into the backyard. I never want to own any piece of your legacy! Carlisle and I have destroyed your adoption papers, even if they're not worth anything, really, in the real world; they were an emotional commitment to you. So glad we destroyed that, I wouldn't want to be emotionally connected to an empty-hearted-egotistical-bitch, which sadly you are!"

After that Carlisle and Esme stepped back, the only one to add her pound of flesh—or maybe liter of blood in our case—was Bella, she stepped forward.

"Alice, you weren't capable enough to bring me down, when you guys found me, I was already at rock bottom, wavering in the beliefs that were installed in me. Edward, with an enormous amount of help from the rest of this coven restored me. All of them but you. From the start you tried to butt into Edward's and my relationship, you tried to break into our tree house and you tried to interfere during times we were working on our slowly growing mating bond. Furthermore you didn't try once to truly help with my training, forbidding me to use your power. So tonight I took your power away. It was useless anyway, not one of your visions was a viable escape. I saw some interesting futures though, but you never factored in that we would cut you off completely, you even thought we didn't know about your secret stash! Sorry Alice, I read your memories in Volterra using Aro's power. I know everything about you! The money you stole from Edward has been recovered to his accounts. Excessive shopping doesn't cover grand larceny; you never knew how meticulous Edward was with his accounts. Or how he learned to do things without making decisions, therefore doing things under your radar. Showing just how ineffective your power is to people who know about it. Just like your ability to manipulate loses its effect when people are aware. Within this coven you're completely powerless, penniless and frankly unwelcome. So my amendment to your punishment is making you powerless. Now it's time for you to go and be a nomad. Be aware that the Denali are also quite aware of everything, they won't accept you. In your duffel is about a hundred and fifty dollars, if you act wisely you'll be able to live on that for a long time! Goodbye Alice."

With that Bella turned and left the room. Jasper and I escorted Alice to Seattle. Leaving her in a wooded park. We told her to go and never come back again, if she ever stumbled upon our property by accident, any of our property, she should turn around and leave. I told her trying to break in the vaults in any of our property was useless, because I already changed all passwords remotely. Jasper pushed a shoebox into her hands; it held everything she saved from her human life.

After her last outburst Alice never spoke a word, brooding in silence, she never noticed Bella using her power through me, how she figured it out I don't know but she read Alice's visions through me. She just allowed Alice to see them too. Then at the end of our association with Alice she had one last venomous remark.

"You're going to regret this, everything you did to me will come back to bite you!"

"Well Alice everything you did to us has already bitten us, we're even! You're simply back to the point where Jasper changed you, except that you aren't locked up any more. Stay here until dark, then leave Washington! Goodbye."

 _'Don't think you're done Edward, I will always haunt you!'_

Alice thought after me, while Jasper and I ran away.

"Well, that went okay, a lot less damage to the house than I thought it would be. She'll try to wreak havoc on the coven; it'll take her some time but eventually she'll find her way to the Volturi and give them all our secrets." Jasper said wryly.

"That's only important after we have made our plans; we're going to help Marcus regain his power. First things first though, we need to find him his Didyme again..."

* * *

 **I hope that that was enough to rid them of a menace. They still need to take care of some things before they can go to Italy.**

 **Let me know what you think.**

 **My recommendations for this week are opposites almost. An AH one and a redeyed Edward one.**

 **My Cowardly Lion by laughablelamb. Shyward and Bashfulella. FFN 5593612**

 **Fill Me with Your Poison by Nolebucgrl. Redeyed Edward as the vampire crown prince in a time they're out in the open. FFN 7007740 and on FicPad on her profile Nolebucgrl.**

 **To close this week off I'd like to remind you that teasers for this story and Bubbleybear's Heavent Sent are posted on our FB group. Groups/769231999887800/**


	6. Chapter 6 And then There Were Seven A

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Well, the general consensus was that they made a mistake keeping Alice alive; while that might be true, I think destruction is letting her off easy. She needed to suffer what she did to others. Redemption, nah, I don't think she's capable of repenting, excluding redemption.**

 **My thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear who's still keeping me grounded. All faults in this chapter are once again mine. We edited the crap out of it, but punctuation might be wonky because my mind won't stop wanting to do that the Dutch way.**

* * *

PARALLAX

Chapter 6

BPOV

I retreated to the tree house to have some peace to deal with something I discovered by accident, not only could I use Edwards power remote, I could use him as an extension for my power. We might need to train that so he can use my power remotely himself. I made sure that Alice's visions were monitored before she was aware of them, taking away the viable ones; the ones that could pose problems for Jasper and Edward. Some of the big overview ones I let pass, but short term visions I couldn't allow through.

Through our link I could hear that she wouldn't try to weasel her way back into the coven, not without her manipulation ability working on us. That would mean being normal, second rate in her mind. She was however already hard at work to scheme for revenge; just as we had expected. I returned to the house when the boys left Alice and begun their run back. I took some of the books we had borrowed from Marcus. We had a whole lot to tell the family about what we weregoing to do. We really had to work out how we could find Marcus' reincarnated mate. Somewhere in my mind an idea was born; the book about vampire royalty held genealogical trees for every royal line. If I understood it correctly, all lines were guaranteed to exist through a set of rules. Every heir to the royal lineage could, when vampirized, take a place in the Royal Council. His line would go on, again with an intricate set of rules to ensure only one heir per generation—male or female, vampires believed in equality in politics, even if males were dominant sexually.

I just knew that those genealogical trees held the key to find Didyme reincarnate. But we had to find a way to dwindle down the number of trees we needed to complete, we also had to find a way to research the trees the hard way. Normally you started in the present and worked back in time; our trees ended in the year 1000 AD, we had to work them to the present.

 **"Bella, don't you think we should work it all out with the rest of them, they could have viable ideas and Jasper here wants to know when we're going to work on this new aspect of our powers. You know, me using your power remotely."**

Edward's mental voice interrupted my musings, he was right, of course, I shouldn't try to gain world peace all on my own.

 _'Well why don't you try it now, you know to find my control room and how to use the switches, use it to hijack Jasper's power and make him laugh really hard.'_ I told him. I stepped back from my control room, leaning against my vault.

I watched him enter shyly, he thought that room to be utterly private. He just stood there uncertainly staring at the wall of lights and knobs. I stepped in behind him and showed him the second wall that had sprung into existence, it was the same as the big general board but held less pairs of knobs. Above the board was a cryptic pictogram—a lightning bolt connected to a person by a line then a lightning bolt from the person to a next one—that after I studied it made perfect sense. I held the power—the lightning bolt—and was connected to Edward—the person in the middle. He then emitted the power onto another—the lightning bolt towards the last person.

Edward pushed a green button, lighting it up and making my power starting to hum its readiness. Nothing happened after that... Edward turn around with a confused look in his eyes.

 **"Now what, how do I get it to run through me?"**

 _'No idea, you know what... let's try and do this later, just like everything with my power it looks like it's still under construction. This might have sprung to life when I wanted to use my power through you, not the other way around. It still might need some adjusting to do to accommodate you using it. That wasn't a pressing wish of mine, just an added perk if it worked.'_

Edward conceded and we bantered back and forth with Jasper joining in when Edward explained what we were thinking about. We built an agenda of the things that needed to be addressed. Carlisle wouldn't like the direction the coven would be taking. He would have to leave his human exploits behind, at least for now. They swung by the tree house and I gave Jasper a quick tour, because even if they helped Edward construct the shell, he never invited them to see the finished product. He was impressed, he truly hadn't ever seen Edward's true nature and taste.

"Edward, I wish I'd known earlier. Damn man the homey feel this tree house has is so much better than the showroom feel Alice insisted we upheld. I understand why you two liked to hide from her here, this is much more your place than your room in the house."

We jumped to our entrance tree and with a push of the button the tree house became the closed off fortress it was designed to be. Not five minutes later we entered the house and stood flabbergasted. The rest of the coven had transformed it already, the living room radiated hominess. The stark white couches now had beach sand colored slipcovers, the throw pillows adding to the beach theme in greys, browns and soft greens. Emmett and Rose sat outside on a stone bench next to the biggest bonfire I'd ever seen. All Alice's stuff and additions to the house were going up in flames. On the other side of the bonfire Kate and Eleazar sat as if nothing strange had happened, they, of course, already knew.

Carlisle came down from his office dressed in faded jeans and a threadbare t-shirt with an undecipherable print on the front.

"Carlisle, how in heavens name did you save that shirt from Alice." Esme called out surprised. From her mind I caught the addition, ' _or me for that matter. Meatloaf hmpf!'_

"Just the way you suggested just now, I put it in my personal safe." He shrugged, "now that we're all here let's talk. I for one was surprised by the suddenness of this action. I totally agreed with everything, I can feel the change Bella made when she exterminated those subliminal signs. But I'd like to know where it came from and what's next."

Jasper snorted, "Carlisle, I can understand it was sudden for you, because you never even looked past the end of your nose on anything concerning the coven. We should be glad that I never tried to teach Alice to use her brainpower. She used tracks but never truly understood it."

I interrupted, "You're right, Jasper, she knew she needed to command someone to do her bidding and it would work, but she never saw it as an ability, just her right and a side-effect of her power. Sadly, she lashed out to her human family after being branded a freak, that vindictive streak never extinguished. She became complacent, happy to dictate everything in this house, that was until she discovered the shortcoming of her ability. It didn't work on people conscious of the fact she tried to manipulate them. That one comment I made, that I wouldn't be manipulated, the very first time I truly talked to her, not just followed her lead. I dissected her misuse of her power and declared her ability not to be used on me. Oh and she tried hard to impress me with her ideas. I've found about seven-hundred-and-fifty-seven seeds for signs she planted in my barren soil in my subconscious mind. Only one sign had unfurled, it urged me to find out your nature. It's not strange that one had a chance, it was totally unnecessary, I had that drive myself much stronger than she could implant.

"Okay, without rehashing everything, my latent mental shield threw her for a loop. Meanwhile the bond between Edward and I frightened her, she knew she had manipulated Jasper into some sort of mating. We know now it was a political mating at best and an imprisonment at its worst. She blocked his mating instincts making it impossible for him to find his true mate. Sorry, Jasper.

"Then, unrelated to Alice and unknown to her, Edward and I were in communication with Marcus. We learned his history and that he was searching for revenge for Didyme's murder, all while he played the stunted searching for self-destruction vampire drowning in immeasurable pain. He created an underground lair filled with vampire history, he searched for the true history of vampire royalty. Simply because he knew he was part of a royal line, as was Didyme. He since found that vampire royalty works on a set of rules, a very specific set of rules lost to the vampire world. Marcus only ever learned the basics from his sire before he was destroyed. He was one of the last historians of the vampire royal lines. In the war with the rebellious vampires almost every ancient with knowledge of the past had been destroyed. Marcus knew enough that he couldn't rule alone, for that purpose he changed his brother Caius—five years his junior before his change. Together they returned the vampire world to peace. Didyme entered the council as soon as her newborn tendencies had subsided.

"Now Aro, he was Didyme's younger brother, through the rules a non royal. He was a royal in waiting for exactly three weeks, then Didyme's sister gave birth to her first born, making her family the heirs of the line. But Didyme was fond of her baby brother and wanted to protect him. She had Marcus change him. To keep him placated he became the captain of the guard." She sighed, "He betrayed them all, he had Didyme killed and blackmailed Caius into compliance. Marcus wasn't in any state to rule due to his grief and Aro took over.

"That's all history, now we need to think on a way to find Didyme's reincarnation. When we find her, Marcus will have the power again to take over. I've gone over everything multiple times without seeing a method. The only thing I see is the book with the vampire royalty genealogical trees. Sadly, they all stopped recording when the book was printed. At least for us to see. We will have to work them the hard way. From the past to the future. But when that works, we will gain the names of the current heirs of every royal line..."

Rose interrupted, "Bella, that would take us a long time, but how do we contact those people without giving away our secrets. It very well might be that some lines no longer know of their heritage."

"You're right, Rose, we'll need to find a way to confirm their heritage before we confront them. It's just how do we find Didyme's reincarnation, not just any royal heir. From what Marcus told us there are about twenty royal lines. The rules that govern those lines make it an intricate puzzle to even find the right line to follow."

Jasper looked at me interested, "Bells, I volunteer my research skills to complete those royal lines to the present, who knows we might find some special surprises in them."

I had to check his subtext to that statement and found him talking mentally to Edward. He suspected that he might find me at the end of one of those lines. How he thought to achieve that feat would remain a mystery, because I was quite sure no one knew who my father was. I couldn't imagine Renee being part of a royal line.

"Uuuh, Bella, I know several alternative ways to find things." Esme came forward hesitantly. "Like astrology, numerology and dowsing..." She continued, "I'm the last of a long line of gypsies who could truly see fortunes, not using tarot or crystal."

Edward's instincts fired, he was already suppressing them when I urged him to voice it. "Esme, those are all very good ideas in a later state of searching. We can use them to assess if names found could be possibilities. But I agree with Bella saying that finding the names of possible heirs is our first step. I'll contact Marcus for a copy of the genealogy trees he found..."

"Edward, you might want to take an inventory of every ability you have access to." Eleazar broke in, "I mean we know of the powers present, but the abilities were ruthlessly suppressed by Alice's manipulations. For the first time I'm seeing things around Rose and Esme..."

He walked around the fire and grabbed Rose by the shoulders, turning her around and around, letting go and asked her to close her eyes and point to the person she felt the most loyalty for. Rose slowly turned around and stopped pointing straight at Emmett, but her other arm came up and it came to rest pointing straight at Edward and I. She whispered something about different kinds of loyalty equally as strong.

"I know it's not a very impressive way of showing her ability, among vampires in this close proximity our scent would be able to guide our choices. What I'm trying to show you all is that our Rose here is a dowsing rod. She will point you the right way when asked the question." Eleazar told us.

Edward took in a sharp breath, "Rose! I asked you where we should go next in Alaska, just before we came here. We had about five choices and Alice wanted to go upscale, to work our way into the London jet-set and rub shoulders with real royalty. You told me, most decisively, Forks, that it would be life altering. When Alice got visions about Forks, and saw Bella she conceded. She truly thought she'd like the new subject. But the important thing here is that you pointed us here. Damn, girl, that's handy!"

If Rose could have blushed, she would have been beet red. The shy look was such a strange thing to see on her that we all burst out laughing. She punched Edward in the shoulder with a half-glare, but it was in good fun too. Everything felt so much more harmonious now that we no longer had a traitor trying to run things. Carlisle sat relaxed with Esme curled into his side, no longer exuding an older exterior, Jasper finally truly looked the nineteen years he was frozen at, only his immeasurably wise eyes told of years of toil, but I never saw him this relaxed before.

Emmett suddenly burst out, "Okay, if my Rosie can steer us the right way, we'll be Jasper's research assistants. We all know old baptismal records can't be found online and should be visited to find out their contents. Let's hope we won't stumble into too many burned down churches, we'll find the data we need. Jasper can then construct the trees according to the rules!"

I was monitoring Jasper, Kate, Eleazar, and Esme, while Edward kept tabs on Emmett, Rose and Carlisle. Edward suddenly pulled me into Carlisle's mind, making me take a look at the enormous wall of ideas that had sprouted up from only our short discussion of possibilities. Three big ideas were constructed from all the little ones we had talked about out loud, all pretty impressive but also marked as needing more empirical data to sway him to one of the ideas. Edward was livid, he pointed to the middle plan. It showed us going to Italy right away to start researching at the source, but only the siblings were going initially. Actually it didn't schedule a role for either Carlisle or Esme in it at all.

"Okay, Carlisle spit it out, there's no way to run tests to gain empirical data on this before we need to act. Don't leave us hanging like you did Jazz and me. You combined everything, but hold off to gather more data! What the hell is wrong with you? Why are all theories in your mind suddenly pushed aside now? And for what? Another set of human patients, are you afraid of vampire business?" Edward exploded.

"Now, Edward, you could be a little more gentle in the way you're talking to me... I simply combined all that was said into large lines, nothing to talk about yet, I need to have a broader view before I can draw conclusions. I won't interfere, I'll just observe..."

 _'Edward, I removed all Alice's signs, including the ones I altered... It looks like he's reverted again to the passive scientist. He truly is afraid to deal with vampire stuff. He loves data, but working something out, truly solving a vampire problem, he shies away from. He's still hung up on his father's beliefs, vampires are bad and you need to stay away from those. This whole integrating with human society, to the point that the only time your vampire comes out is during hunting, has its roots in his indoctrination by his father.'_

"Okay, gentlemen and fellow ladies, it seems this throws a roadblock in our planning. We're done for today, I'm going to do some shopping and tomorrow we'll have some lessons in thinking like others. See you tomorrow!" I dismissed everyone.

 **'Damn, woman, you're absolutely gorgeous when you take control. You're shopping? For what? Can I come too?'**

 _'Yes you can, grab Jazz too would you, I'll need both your help tomorrow. I'm shopping for supplies to teach them all what you went through as a newborn.'_

The three of us went on a quick shopping spree in Seattle, a second monster bill would have to be paid on Amazon, if it wasn't digital I would have emptied the store. Edward mixed blocks of stories together, we wanted the four-hundred-and-twenty-nine audiobooks mixed into seven tracks. Every one of the stories was narrated by a different voice. Three of the tracks were combined sexual fantasies in audiobook form. We were building the perpetual soundtrack of Edward's mind for others to hear. I wanted the non powerful members of our coven to experience the other side of a power. I wanted Carlisle specifically to undergo a true vampire trait. Somewhere in the back of my mind a theory was forming. Looking at the way he taught them all to cope, I could surmise the way his make-up was constructed.

His father had instilled a basic fear of the supernatural, his character was one of control. After his change he worked tirelessly, to subdue his vampire-self. At first by suicide attempts, but after he found the humanitarian way of existing by caging the vampire inside, then burying that cage deep inside the forgotten corners of his being. He looked at his being vampirized as an unfortunate genetic accident. I didn't want to lose him as a coven member, but he had some major changing to do. Right now he couldn't even be called a vampire without taking huge leverage.

After we recorded our parts in the thought tapes, specifically for each coven member without a gift, Jasper and Edward set up the garage for our experiment, while I made the tongue in cheek sign I would hang over the door of the sound proof room in the garage. I used colored markers with glitter in the ink to make it look like a Halloween house of horrors. After we confronted Carlisle we were in need of some mindless fun, still educating our siblings.

We gathered everyone in the living room, including our powerful cousins, giving everyone but Carlisle the choice to join us in the Be a Mind Reader Experience.

"Okay people listen up, all of you but Carlisle get the choice to experience what it's like to have a power. No, Emmett, you don't get to choose... We've set up a total experience for all of you. I've got to go prepare myself, please follow Jasper to our venue. Carlisle you come with me."

I led him to the garage the quickest route available. He needed a private talk before he went in. His demeanor was polite but slightly indignant.

"Okay, Carlisle, answer me this," I started the treatment to free his vampire. "Do you believe yourself mated to your true mate?"

He looked at me bewildered, "Of course, I loved Esme the instant I saw her." He exclaimed determinately.

"Really, then please explain to me how it was possible for you to leave her for ten years, which not only left her alone but the victim of an abusive spouse. A spouse, Carlisle! Edward can't even think of another male human or vampire touching me, and it was worse when our bond wasn't completed. How could you leave when you mated with her at sixteen?!"

I was met with a furrowed brow and silence.

"Good, no answer. Can you tell me what the latest instinctual reaction was you had, other than hunting?"

Another surge of utter silence and even deeper furrowed brow.

"To help you free your vampire, you're going to endure what a vampire with a gift endures as a newborn. Please try and connect to your vampire-self. Your instructions are to answer every question I actually ask you out loud. Please step inside and put on the headphones." I told him, mentioning to the door of our soundproof room.

The moment he went to step into the room Edward's phone started to ring. I held Carlisle back and looked over to Edward just outside of the garage. He stayed out of sight from Carlisle, because he was already in full make-up to make him look human. The phone call was from Irina who was alone in Alaska holding down the fort while her coven was here helping us.

 _"Edward, I'm glad you warned me! Alice showed up today and tried to manipulate me into going to the Volturi with her."_

* * *

 **Carlisle will be pulled into the vampire world, if it's willingly that will be revealed next week. Please let me know what you thought through a review.**

 **My recommendations for this week, because Christmas is upon us soon I've chosen my favourite AH Christmas stories.**

 **The Red Coats by ericastwilight, my all time favourite AH Xmas story. A story of giving back and restoration. Ffn 9938576**

 **Christmas Magic by JenRar, with Santaward and Elfella, a sweet Christmas romance. Ffn 9932890 and FP on her profile JenRar.**

 **See you next week,**

 **Pien.**


	7. Chapter 7 Be a Mind Reader Experience

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Through several sources it came to my attention that people think I want to switch Carlisle's outlook on existing toward being a fighter. Let me tell you now that that is not what is happening and the root of the matter seems to be the difference between pacifist and passive. I have no trouble with Carlisle being against violence, pacifist, at all. I do however think that not acting at all even if you have a peaceful solution, passive, is reprehensible. What Bella and Edward are trying to do is integrate Carlisle's human and vampire, to make it possible for him to come to his full potential, while still being a pacifist.**

 **Thanks go out again to Lorraine for just always being there from the other side of the world.**

 **All mistakes are my own, this chapter isn't beta'd by anyone other than Lorraine and I.**

 **Let's see what will happen to Carlisle, shall we?**

* * *

Chapter 7 Be a Mind Reader Experience

EPOV

 _"God, Edward, it was weird! She kept urging me to go with her, giving increasingly absurd reasons for me to do so. Finally she became angry, shouting at me that I always was such a good follower, but that I had let Bella corrupt me. I mean, how off course can you get! She knows I didn't meet your Bella yet!_

 _"I'm the first to admit that I was mad with grief when I heard Tanya was destroyed, but she brought it on herself. How ridiculous was she, I mean, every vampire knows a male is forced, by his body, into fidelity. Don't tell me that her insistent stalking of you was also Alice induced."_

"The stalking wasn't, the over the top flirting and mental rape were."

 _"God, Tanya was a piece of work by herself, clearly. What I was calling you for, is that I know Alice tried to access all her accounts, without luck I might add. Her next step was trying to get me to give her money. It's so strange to see that ability at work but know you're not affected anymore. Bottom line, she went away as penniless as she came, muttering that she'll swim to Italy if necessary. You all better head her off before she spills the beans to Aro."_

"Irina, thank you for the info. We were already thinking about going to Italy for other reasons. I'm not sure yet if your coven members will go with us or not, are you going to stay and hold the fort in Alaska?"

 _"Yes, I'm a homebody, I'm perfectly fine here alone. I'm going to go hunting. To be sure I'll lock down the house, we don't want a disgruntled pixie ransacking the closets for a pair of Louboutins. Edward, good luck, and tell your mate I like her already! Bye."_

"Thank you, bye, Irina."

Bella's impatient mental voice was urging me to get ready, going over the checklist one more time. I made sure I had some distance from the garage when she frog marched Carlisle into the soundproof room, pushed the Bluetooth ear buds in his hands and asked him his first question out loud.

"Are you prepared to submerge yourself in this experience, completely and accept the consequences?"

She shut the door to the soundproof room and I followed the conversation through the link.

 _'I don't know, Bella, what is going to happen?'_

 _'We're going to submerge you into the newborn experiences of Edward. As close as we can get it. You let him wake up in the middle of a city, his mind's range was and is five miles. Just imagine it before you get a sample... The rules of this little experiment are: One, you need to answer any of my questions, the verbal ones, while you ignore the mental ones. Two, total honesty even when it's uncomfortable. Three, once you start we decide when to stop. Four, all consequences will be faced with honor. That's it do you accept this challenge?'_

 _'Will I be part of this coven if I don't?'_

Well I'll be damned! He acknowledges the coven and saw the biggest consequence clearly.

 _'Simply said, no, you won't. It means that you're not able to be a part of a vampire coven. We won't be associating with humans for more than circumstantial contact for a long time. We are going to help Marcus, that means we need to_ be _true vampires.'_

 _'Ah, I know I was born to be a scientist I'm not sure if I can but I know that this coven is my link to this existence. I accept the challenge.'_

 _'Great, put in the ear buds and switch them on... That's it, now remember you're only to answer my verbal questions.'_

Jasper started the recording, I looked over my make-up making sure that every bit of visible skin was pinked up, giving myself a blushing complexion. It had to be absolutely believable that I was human. I had a bag of clothes fished from the hospital hamper, a mix of sweat and blood was all over the scrubs. The breast pocket would be very important, a separate iPod would give me a heartbeat.

Bella started asking her verbal questions, until that moment Carlisle was being stubborn and answered nothing. He was holding his head while he crouched in the corner—a pose I remembered well—rocking back and forth. Jasper let us know that Carlisle felt anxious and terribly overwhelmed, but that he showed no sign of cracking, yet. I listened in to Bella's steady stream of questions. Each one asked in at least three different ways.

 _'So, you were changed traditionally, and left alone to cope?_

 _'What made you restrain yourself, Carlisle?_

 _'Not saying you did bad, but didn't you ever even try to be a vampire?_

 _'You value humanity, without the possibility of ever being a part of it again, why do you try to be something you're not?_

 _'How could you leave your mate for ten years after the bond was initiated?_

 _'While you supposedly were already mated, your mate married and became pregnant. Didn't that destroy your mating bond in favor of a political mating?_

 _'Carlisle, you promised to cooperate during this experiment, why haven't you answered any of the questions yet?'_

The only answer Bella had gotten was that Carlisle started to pace the room. Bella monitored him through mine as well as Jasper's power. It looked like Carlisle's vampire was rattling in its deep and dark dungeon. At the last question a snarl escaped through his clenched teeth.

 _'Why do you think? I can't make heads or tails of any of it, I can't see your face and my mind is flooded with redundant information, I can feel my control slipping...'_

That was my cue, Carlisle finally admitted that he was in complete control of his vampire nature. We would have to move fast, inundate ourselves in the vampire world. It would give him time to acclimate himself to being what he was. Now I had to coax out his inner vampire, starting the iPod taped to my chest behind a steel plate in the breast pocket to protect it. The plate also worked to amplify the sound. Jasper gave me a quick once over and deemed me human enough. I wanted to open the door and step inside, to dislodge Carlisle's vampire, when Bella's internal voice stopped me.

 _'He isn't there yet, Edward, look.'_

She was right, even if his thoughts were chaos, he still held on to his control through ruthless methods. Ruthless on himself, he almost beat himself into submission. The only way to remove that control was another round of questions fired off like a machine gun.

 _'Why did you control your urges when you woke from the change?_

 _Why did you try to kill yourself?_

 _What did you think when you left Esme alone?_

 _You had to have felt the mating bond pull you to her, why not court her?_

 _Did it hurt when you left?_

 _What did you feel when you found her again on death's door?_

 _What was it like to find out that another male had had your mate?_

 _So you truly think you're mated to Esme?_

 _Did you actually complete the bond?_

 _Did you ever have feral sex in the woods?_

 _What happens when another male vampire covets your mate?'_

Jasper threw in our best recording yet, the thoughts of a male vampire lusting over Esme... We had Emmett record a series of thoughts about Esme, what he'd like to do to her; Emmett had done it because Jasper and I couldn't get the words out of our mouths. It had an immediate effect, through the link I witnessed how the walls Carlisle had bricked his vampire behind began to crumble.

I opened the door and stepped into the soundproof room, I felt Jasper closing the door behind me. Carlisle snarled at me, acting human I backed up to the wall. Bella feigned to attack me and we both witnessed the walls in Carlisle mind explode, his human being thrown back into the rubble and the vampire asserting its power for the first time ever. He violently pushed Bella aside and attacked me. Clawing hands gripping my upper arms. Using all my strength I was able to twist out of the attack but he was feral, his thoughts chaotic, it was terribly difficult to subdue him.

 _'How in the blazes does this human have that much strength?'_ It flew through his mind, he truly didn't recognize me logic and scientific thoughts weren't to be found anywhere near the surface. He acted like a newborn, we would have to feed him. But as long as I couldn't get him under my control we couldn't leave a garage in the middle of a residential area; maybe our choice of venue hadn't been the smartest.

Bella with her newborn strength and a little loan from Emmett, who lounged outside with the rest of the coven, got the snarling Carlisle in a chokehold, forcing him to let go of me and giving me a chance to rapidly shut off the heartbeat iPod and grab his wrists, immobilizing him. The soundproof room was awash with snarls and vicious growls, I threw the door open and yelled to Jasper to shut down and come and help. Emmett and Jasper immediately appeared to help get the truly feral Carlisle under control. Rose and Esme stood to the side with big eyes, Esme with a fist to her mouth to stop her sounds coming out; she instinctually knew that would set him off even more. Emmett took one look and in his usual way bellowed, "WHOA, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU _DO_?"

He should have kept his trap shut, the moment Carlisle heard his voice his instinctual reaction was to eliminate the threat to his mate. It now took all four of us to subdue him, while Jasper and Bella both flooded him with calming vibes. That did the job, Carlisle sagged in our hold and we carried him into the forest behind the garage. I took a quick bath in the river easily ridding myself of the make-up.

&&&&&&&&&&&T&T&T&&&&&&&&&&&

When the jet touched down on Pisa airport, I was reminiscing on the few interesting weeks we had training a newbornesque Carlisle to harness his human to stand beside him. Carlisle's demeanor had changed completely, he was full of energy and his mind had become a bit terrifying to dive into, the number of scientific solutions he thought feasible for the vampire world was staggering. His vampire was still dominant in his new stand in life, but he had his control back. Thank the powers that be it only took a few weeks. During those weeks we also found that I now had a joystick mounted on the remote power panel in Bella's control room. We played around a bit with it, child's play.

After those few weeks, we got the dreaded message from Marcus telling us that Alice had descended on Aro's court. She revealed her own power but not the other powers in our coven. When Marcus revealed that little fact a devious grin spread on my Bella's face. Aro assessed her power and found it carnival worthy at best, nothing more. We had to be glad she had let us rearrange her mind for her, not paying enough attention to understand what we did, the bulk of her visions were stored behind her wall of pain.

According to Marcus, Alice hadn't got it in her to direct her power to greater things because her mind was solely focused on her own gain. Misuse of powers often narrowed them to be less than useful. Well that would make our task easier, because not only did Alice misuse her power, so did Aro.

We told Marcus we would be in Italy as soon as possible, the house in Forks was now packed away and closed up. We put our personal effects into storage in the basement of our Canadian home. Bella and I just took one laptop and our phones with us besides one big suitcase of clothes. Jasper saw the wisdom of traveling light and had years of experience of traveling with almost nothing, he brought a small suitcase, which was filled with books leaving a little less than half of it for clothes and a carry on with his laptop and yet more books.

Dealing with Carlisle's fresh mind meant dealing with a mad scientist trying to take all his toys. We limited him to his laptop and a simple microscope, telling him a thousand times we would give him a laboratory for experiments in Italy. Little did he know that Marcus was constructing that lab already. The moment he heard Carlisle's idea for artificial blood he started the build.

Two SUVs were waiting in the hanger our plane would be stored in, personal vehicles Marcus acquired without Aro knowing about it. Marcus was good, he hoodwinked Aro with his almost suicidal behavior into believing he wasn't any kind of threat. By drowning his mind in pain it was closed to his brother-in-law. Aro avoided his mind like the plague, other than the freely given thoughts Marcus lifted out of the mire of pain. He had also constructed an underground garage close to and connected with the cave. Inside the SUVs we found an encrypted garage-door-opener built on the same principal as the remote key of our tree house. They came with a warning that the door would close fast after every car and there was no safety-stop on it. We wouldn't be killed but the car would be crushed.

Bella and I looked around in amazement, Marcus had done a lot, the garage could easily hold ten cars. In the far corner was a door without a handle or bell. I looked through the package we found in the car and found a second remote key. This one yellow in color, while the garage was standard black. Opening the sliding door with the key, we entered a long corridor with doors on both sides; each of the doors held a plaque with our names on it. Bella and I had our quarters nearest the far door. It was a suite of rooms with a sitting room and a bedroom, beside the bedroom was a shower room; well it was a one person shower stall built into a closet like space, but I was impressed; indoor plumbing in the middle of nowhere, I remembered what a hassle it was to get electricity and water to the tree house only four miles from the house.

The corridor held a suite for each couple and one for Jasper. There was a door which had a note on it: under construction, I peeked under the note and the plaque said laboratory. Finally there were two suites of rooms without plaques, I guessed Marcus thought ahead and constructed a couple of guest rooms. We unloaded the SUVs and relaxed a while in our suites.

A loud siren roused us out of our relaxed state, followed by Marcus' voice over an intercom system.

 _"Good afternoon, Masens, let's meet in the big library to start our planning. You'll find the library at the opposite side of the corridor from the garage."_

Bella and I dressed in casual clothes and wandered to the door opposite the garage. Next to it was a note that we had to turn the push button on the yellow remote key a quarter turn then push the button. That would open the door. Bella fiddled with the little knob and pushed. The door started to open, no that wasn't it, the whole door came about two feet toward us, when that movement stopped the contraption slid aside in a niche. I walked through once again taking the side of the gap that was the least safe. Yeah right, I was a fool and my thoughts made Bella giggle, I stepped into the library Bella and I visited the last time.

Surrounded by crazy old books in every form, Marcus sat at one of the cloister tables, the other table held several scrolls rolled out on its surface. A quick scan of them showed me either three different genealogical trees or, if those scrolls were connected, centuries of one tree.

"Welcome to my upscale shelter, we all know each other but I think I see some drastically different connections between you all. Carlisle, my dear friend, I will help you with the integration of your vampire and human selves, but the ideas that, I heard, are forming in your mind are really very, very interesting and I'm setting you up to explore them, starting with the artificial blood.

"Jasper, my condolences on your phony mating, due to the rules on interfering with mating bonds I couldn't say a thing to you until you found out for yourself. It's the same reason why Bella and Edward didn't act earlier. I covered for your non-registered mating with Aro. Alice said she broke off a political mating when she showed up here alone. What she revealed to Aro I don't know exactly, but I know for sure she didn't expose your powers; only her own was suddenly out in the open. The visions she showed Aro made him scoff though. Somehow she only showed the self serving part of her future seeing."

Bella once again had a smug smile on her beautiful face.

"Do explain, dear Bella, by the look of it you had something to do with Alice's reticent behavior in revealing coven business."

"Well, Marcus, I used Aro's power on Alice, when we were here before. I studied her, looked for intelligent use of the vampire attributes given to her in her change. She never did, the rearranging of her mind was done by the numbers laid out by Edward. Almost bored she re-shaped the burning from her change into a wall. Locking her power behind it. The crux of the matter is, however, that she neither understands her power, nor her ability. They are hers, and that's that. As long as they do what she wants them to...

"Much like the way she treats her extras, she treated us, her family members; and we were hers in her twisted mind. I simply used her ignorance. I used her ability against her, after learning it and its weaknesses I carefully constructed one of her own signs. It was worded very precise, to make sure she could reveal exactly what I wanted her to reveal. Alice is unaware that she's been manipulated so the sign works like a charm."

"You're the devious one, Bella, yes?" Marcus stated chuckling "the result of her revelations; Aro was less than impressed. He ordered her to predict the number of humans Heidi would bring in the next day. Proving a value in her future seeing. The twerp didn't see the importance and talked back that humans really were not her preferred prey, so why should she waste her time on that. Her whole demeanor was like she was more than any of us because we drink humans; or at least that's what she seemed to think. She antagonized Aro further by plopping down on his throne and almost ordering him to find her a deer. The result of that little infraction was Felix throwing her out of the castle, with the strict instruction not to return without something Aro could use.

"He has Demetri and the twins following her, or traveling with her because she scouted them out pretty soon. I've made sure Demetri is aware of her ability, but ordered him to follow the twins lead when their actions start to deviate from their orders. He keeps me informed."

After the initial exchange of information we started on laying out tasks to get to our goal, finding Didyme's reincarnation. Jasper had, as did I, noticed the genealogical charts on the other table. It turned out to be one of the most complete branches of the royal tree. A meticulous family tree through first born children ending around 1150 BC spanning over four millennia. The first nine hundred years held no known names, but then this tree became one of the main ones. There loud and clear stood two names next to each other that would make this the first investigation we would ensue. Marcus and Caius brotherly next to each other, next to their names no year of death was listed, at least the second date held a little crown, not a little cross. Their parents and their families both held crosses, the conclusion was easy to reach, the crowns symbolized vampirization.

Jasper dove right in, memorizing the entire lineage mapped out before us. As that was his area of expertise I left him to it and looked around to where Bella was reading a book on dowsing, while Esme and Rose were setting out their own books and all kind of stuff; I had no idea what it all was. Seeing Marcus bend over the table next to Jasper, deep in discussion over his ancestral tree; the ladies all immersed in supernatural ways to find someone's reincarnation. Esme already drawing Marcus' astrological chart and Carlisle deep into the manual for an electron microscope situated in his, nearly finished, state of the art hematologic laboratory; I felt redundant and started to feel petulant. Bella tsked me mentally and held out a book about numerology. I tried to settle down and follow the program outlined in the book, but I couldn't keep my mind on something I just didn't believe in. If they could work their magic and determine which person on this earth was born to be Didyme's reincarnation, good for them but I was here to lead my coven and felt completely redundant and honestly bored stiff.

The colored lines I had to draw to find out the number of a person's name became doodles. One of my pencils hit the glass the rest of the pencils were set in and a muffled C chimed out. I was mesmerized, I started to tap other objects to gauge their tone. Soon I was surreptitiously making my way around the library hitting each book, shelf, lamp; let's be fair every hard surface. In my mind I built a scale, a piano built from objects around the room.

To play a tune I would have to use my natural speed, I decided on Bella's song. That melody started out with me using four pencils to make it possible to hit all the notes. It was a sedate rhythm mostly concentrated on books away from the others. When I came to the bit where Bella started to change and the higher notes came into play I overplayed my hand. I flitted past Bella pressing a kiss into her hair, still reaching the Tiffany's lamp in time for the B-flat, on my way back however I brushed too close past Jasper, leaning back in his chair and I upset the balance he had going on and he fell backwards with a crash.

Emmett, who had sat quietly in a comfortable chair, reading, told me how it was.

"Jeez, Edward, I thought I was the brat in this coven, shouldn't you portray the leader, man?"

Marcus' phone vibrated in his pocket with a text message. He pulled it out and briefly glanced at his screen. His eyes lit up, he had bought several patents regarding the artificial blood. Shipping in specialized ingredients for Carlisle to experiment with. Several crates had been cleared by customs. That message gave Marcus an idea. He sent me with one of the SUVs to the airport of Rome to collect the precious cargo.

Driving at night it didn't take me more than three hours to be on the way back. Three crates in the back of the SUV, retrieving them had actually taken most of the time. I had to calm down, I thought a full stomach would help with the jittery feelings, Bella agreed, I hid the car and bounded off into the forest I found to hunt in. I just drained my third deer when I heard four minds enter my range.

 _'... need to find some leverage, these three yahoos were too easy to subdue, but without a big gift Aro's never going to let me stay at the castle. I need to be there to work my magic! I'm going to out the vampires to the world and take over! Finally I will be in my rightful place, Queen of the world...'_

Ugh, Alice's mind has taken leave of her senses, she became certifiable.

 _'This new mistress will help us overrule Aro, it's too bad that our powers won't work on our sire. Hopefully Mistress Alice will know how to handle him.'_

These thoughts were strangely dual, but in complete sync. Jane and Alec were someway linked to each other.

 _'Edward, I know you're here, I can feel you with my power. Your former sister has some pretty high up plans. I'm here to help you if needed. I'll follow your lead, but I can't go openly against Alice. I need her to believe she enslaved me too. So all I can do is make sure she keeps you in one piece. Now I need to give you up, before she smells you around.'_

I retreated my mind into Bella's control room, accessing my own set of controls. I couldn't find Jasper anywhere near Bella. Damn, I knew how to use his power on myself. Now it had to rely on strange minds to do my bidding, I didn't even know if that would work, until now the power I used always was with Bella. Shit, we should have thought the possibilities out more. From what Demetri thought to me I would be captured. Alice would think me a big prize, for sure. I would have to bring them all down using either Jane's or Alec's power. Bella had sequestered her mind in her privacy room. I sat down on the couch in the living room of our mental home. I wouldn't disturb her privacy, since we were linked we had precious little of that. Besides I would be able to do this by myself.

"Well, well, well what have we here? The almighty coven leader all alone, now I'm the one with the advantage. Not so high on your horse now, are you Eddie? Now you're going to feel what you did to me... Jane, go ahead."

I was hit with the most excruciating pain I ever felt, I grabbed hold of my joystick in Bella's control room, wrapping both Jane and Alec up in a tendril. Acting my heart out, I dialed Jane's power down to gentle tickles. Rolling on the ground, screaming I slowly tried to use Alec's power on myself, it was too much to ask to flatten them all. I couldn't concentrate well enough through all the mayhem. His numbing brought me to the state I wanted to be. The act worked I became slower and slower until I drifted off in darkness.

* * *

 **Okay, evil cliffie I know, I'll be hiding under my bed to be sure. Let me know your thoughts, please leave a review.**

 **In the runup to Christmas these stories are my recommendations.**

 **Scrooge by kitchmill. Edward doesn't like Christmas, Bella is down on her luck. Can these two lost souls heal each other? Ffn 9953080, FP profile kitchmill.**

 **A Home for the Hollidays by CullensTwiMistress. Bella's parents went on a Christmas cruise without her. Kate, her college roommate invites her to stay with her and her dad for the festive season. Ffn 9894140**

 **Enjoy reading,**

 **Pien**


	8. Chapter 8 Start of the Collection

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, I borrow her characters and play with them. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **I know, I know, I'm late posting this. It is my habit to post this around midnight on Monday evening, well as soon as it's Tuesday here. Last night I had the final lesson of a course and came home knackered, I completely slipped my mind I had to post until I was almost asleep. I won't promise it won't happen again, after all Tuesday is my posting day, and it's still Tuesday here.**

 **Thanks go once again from the bottom of my heart to Lorraine Bubbleybear who keeps me on track, even in the hardest times. I also have to acknowledge content1 for her excellent ideas on encarcerating vampires, I was happy she let me use her ideas.**

 **Let's see what happened to Edward shall we?**

* * *

Chapter 8 Start of the Collection.

BPOV

I had finished my meditation to center my mind, a habit I had developed to keep my mind free of clutter; to help keep the bad memories from influencing me. They were a part of me and helped shape me, but they no longer described me. Edward was an angel about giving me the privacy I needed, I didn't want to lose myself in our intensely melded minds. I skipped through our mental mansion, looking at all the happy pictures we hung around the place.

I stilled all movement, Edward hadn't greeted me when I left my privacy room. It was eerily quiet in our mental abode, I walked past my control room and found it a mess. What. The. Hell?

Running around in my mind I skidded into the living room and came to a dead stop. Edward sat on the couch, motionless, eyes closed and after I gave him a good shake still unresponsive. Shit. Jasper had gone with Emmett and Rose to show them how to go through baptismal records to verify the genealogical trees we already had. They were in Naples for the day. Damn, that meant Edward had to defend himself all alone with strange powers. The goddamn prideful git hadn't gotten me to help him. Stupid teenage vampire jock. Damn, now I didn't know if he knocked himself out, or that one of them did.

Peeking outside of my brain, I felt the effect of the absence of Edward's consciousness. A dull pain had started in my chest and the room was unusually silent, I realized that I didn't hear any minds. Edward had been shut down completely. It was a comfort that I still had him in my mind. The link couldn't be shut down even when one of the two linked was shut down, temporarily, I hoped. I had to fight the panic that bubbled up inside and focus on the fact that the shutdown was Edward induced and not caused by dismemberment after a fight.

I heard a cellphone beep with an incoming text and seconds later Marcus came my way...

"Aro has Edward." We said in unison. A satisfied smile graced Marcus' face, "Good!"

I gave him a shaky nod, but had a boatload of questions that had to quell the panic.

"Marcus, are we sure Edward's still in one piece when his mental persona is completely unresponsive, but in one piece. Would his mental persona split in parts when his physical persona is torn apart?"

I was anxious, the fact that Edward was still in my mind was comforting up to a point. His power was also shut down, and through our trials with Jasper that never happened, even when he knocked himself out on vampire Xanax. Edward had slept more the last weeks than a vampire should be boastful about. Whenever we went on a hunt with Jasper we practiced. As soon as Edward started to succeed in using my power he had the same problem I had in the beginning; it only worked at full force. It was too funny to see him concentrate hard until suddenly his eyes rolled in his head and he slowly sagged through his legs, completely out of it. His first ever blast of Jasper's lethargy had him sleeping like a baby for three hours. Thank the powers that be that his power kept working for me.

This time his power had cut off, the only proof we had he still existed was his mental persona sitting like a statue on our couch in our mental home. Marcus took my hand and brought me to a room he had behind the big painting of Didyme. He grabbed a notebook and pen.

 _*Tesora, this needs to be kept between you and me and when he wakes up Edward. Promise me!_

I nodded my consent, to keep our conversation silent.

 _*All right, you are the first in fifteen hundred years I've told about this. The fact that you and Edward have the link Didyme and I had is the only reason I would ever divulge this._

Marcus closed his eyes and took a big cleansing breath

* _Mia cara, as long as your Edward stays a statue he's okay. He's anesthetized all right, but he would be a walking talking specter when he was destroyed. Understand this Bellisima, I never completely lost my Didyme. She_ still is a presence in my mental home.

 _*Just enough of her presence remains to soothe my soul, it makes it possible to live on and be so incredibly patient with my revenge. After your insightful thinking on reincarnations I actually think that my biggest revenge will be walking up to Aro with my mate on my arm._

 _*Anyway what I wanted to explain was that Didyme was frozen in place in our mental home when Alec stunned her. Her statue fell apart when they ripped her to pieces, and a ghostlike apparition emerged. So my dear girl, Edward is stunned by Alec's power but completely fine you might want to check in your control room that the control of Alec's power has been switched off. If Edward stunned himself he might still be doing that.*_

I could finally breathe again, it was immensely sad that Didyme had to give up her existence for me to have that relief. A quick check in my control room told me Marcus was right again, Edward was still stunning himself. I shut down all external powers except Edward's mind reading, then I overrode his access panel to shut down his use of my power. I felt a tingle run through the link at once, the debilitating effects of Alec's power were sure to dissipate soon.

After a few minutes the most wonderful sound erupted in my mind, the voice of my mate.

 **'Bella, honey? What's happening? I can't move, sweetheart, where are you?'**

 _'Edward, finally! You big oaf, why didn't you warn me? You're still paralyzed by Alec's power. I can't use your power yet, so right now only our link is reactivating communications. You've been out for a long time, because of your stupid male chauvinism we don't know if anything will be permanent. To clue you in, Mister I can do this alone, its thirty hours since you left to do your errand. There's also an SUV missing, assuming with the three crates of ingredients for Carlisle. We just have to hope nobody found it out in the open and had it stripped or towed. It'll be hard to explain those ingredients together when the authorities have gotten hold of them. It really is ironic that artificial blood could become a bomb when mixed the wrong way.'_

I chided him immediately, the big oaf should be sorry it went down like this.

 **'You're right of course, darling. My pride overruled my level-headedness. You'll be pleased to know my power is kicking in again. One less thing to possibly be permanent.'**

 _'That little cunt thinks she has great clout with me after bringing in this worthless piece of vampire. The thing doesn't even have a power. I probed his mind already when they were here last year, he's useless and, what I've found through Miss Priss, only averagely wealthy. Too little to spend the time on to get my hands on it.'_ Aro's thoughts were broadcasted loudly through our mental home.

Shit, I dialed up its broadcasting level to hear the littlest things coming through. A quick dash into the still trashed control room dialed the transmission of thoughts back to an acceptable level.

 _'This should be my permanent way in with that headstrong oaf of a wannabe dictator. I hadn't reckoned it would take catching Mister high and mighty coven leader, but it's a nice perk to see him hanging there like that.'_

 _'Edward, I'm sorry I couldn't overrule Master Aro's orders I had to string you up.'_ Demetri interrupted the stream of venom from Alice.

We kept listening in, and heard a whole array of people present in the castle. Most thoughts were pretty much people focused on their tasks, Edward's power wasn't completely released yet so all he could pick up outside of the room he was in were the superficial layers of thought. Thank goodness it looked like his hearing began to kick in again too.

" _Well, Alice, you did good capturing him. What do you think he was doing here in Italy so close to Volterra? And alone to make matters more interesting. I already tried to read him but somehow he's shut down completely. I didn't know Jane's power could do that to a vampire..."_

 _"Aro, Kate Denali told us that she could shock a vampire out cold. So maybe Jane just never knew she could do it before, after all you were not there to stop her this time. I must say that he looks good hanging there unable to do a thing. How long until he will come around, you think?"_

 _"Not long I should think, but too long for you to be here. You need to go and make sure your former coven knows their leader has been captured. So, andiamo, out you go."_

 _"But Aro, I'm unable to see Bella and everyone around her in my visions. Somehow that pesky little shield of hers messes with my power. How will I find them?"_

 _"How should I know? Take Demetri with you he should be able to point you in the right direction. You might want to just try and see where you end up in your visions while thinking about meeting up with them."_

 _"You think I didn't do that? The only thing I see when I do that is black with flashes of light. I have absolutely no idea what that could be."_

 _"Now that isn't my problem! And this audience has been over for the last five minutes! Why are you still here? Along you go, before I lose my patience!_

 _"Now that we are alone Edward, I'm going to tell you my plans. Well not really, you're out of it so this won't even register. I'm alone and will tell my pretty new statue the plans I have for him and his little retarded coven._

 _"Alice might think you a big prize, but to me you're nothing more than a means to an end. My goal is to possess your mate, possess her power as well as her herself. I'll fuck the bond out of her..."_

Oh ewwww, that was disgusting, the nasty things going through his head had me actually gagging, yesterday's deer tried to make its way out again. I felt Edward's reaction through our link and it baffled me completely. He was desperately trying to hold in his laughter...

' _What the F... Edward! Why would you laugh at his disgusting thoughts of raping me?'_

 **'Calm down, sweetheart, he's obviously not schooled in mating and it's idiosyncrasies. The moment a truly mated female's venom touches any other male, than her mate, the area touched by that venom will shrivel and scar badly. I saw his intentions and imagined the outcome. A shriveled tongue and cock both scarred beyond being useful to him anymore. He wouldn't be able to talk anymore and his cock would probably fall off.'**

Now that had me giggling, too. I was suddenly very glad I never felt like biting or licking my brothers during our play fights. Protecting friendly males had to be instinctive in a mated female's mind.

I tried to listen in again when all of a sudden Edward's sense of smell kicked in full force and wherever they had stashed him was rank. It stank of death. His holding cell had to be between the cells where they kept their human prey and where they disposed of their table scraps. I had never smelled anything so vile. This couldn't be how the powers that be had intended vampires to live, so callous and vile.

 **'Damn, Bella, that makes me want to shut off my sense of smell again! On the other hand this puts me off humans for at least another century, even if it wasn't my choice to abstain.'**

 _'You're right and I'm glad I can shut off your sense of smell to me. How are your eyes?'_

 **'Right now I couldn't tell you how well they work because I'm still acting as if I'm stunned. I've wiggled my toes in my shoes and pushed my nails in my palms. As far as I can smell all other vampires are behind me, probably to make me uncomfortable. Just to be sure I'm keeping my eyes closed, I mean Aro is crazy enough to hang an ornate mirror in this cesspool just to be able to see my face. But to reassure you, I can see light and dark through my eyelids.'**

 _'Nice, all function returning.'_

As soon as I was sure Edward would be okay, I surged my power through him and wrapped Aro in a green tendril. Then I wrapped a supercharged red one around him. It was nice to find that I could do that even when Edward's eyes were closed and I had no idea at all where my prey stood. I noticed another presence near Edward and my hackles rose; that vindictive nasty piece of juvenile vampire, going under the name Jane. Her mind was a fast read, her thirteen years on this planet before she was vampirized had been full of persecution and anguish. She and her brother were caught and were on the verge of being burned at the stake when Aro convinced the town council that he would take them away and they would never see them again. Her vampire mind was strangely blank to Aro's power. Or should I say simply empty she only followed orders without thought or action against them.

I went through Jane's file in Aro's mind and found her so tightly indoctrinated that it wasn't strange that her mind was fried into nothingness. Chelsea was in the room with Edward and I used the time I got with her to tone down the force of her power and locking it in a medium setting. Every time I had the chance I would dial her power down a bit further. That way all members of the guard were free to start using their own mind and choices step by step. Their true loyalties would surface and we might start moving toward democracy...

 **'Bella, I'm going to open my eyes, are you recording Aro?'**

 _'Of course I am, I'm emptying his archives three lines at the time. One line is tapping Jane and another is working on Chelsea. I'm limiting Chelsea's power. From now on the force of her power will slowly diminish like a speed limiter on a car; I'm the one who will slowly decrease her influence.'_

Edward opened his eyes and low and behold there was indeed a mirror and we looked in the highly amused eyes of Aro. He was so happy to have captured a coven leader, his mind was almost dancing in his head.

 _"Ah, Edward, you finally seem to make your reappearance. I have to apologize for the power explosion by Jane, it wasn't supposed to have knocked you out. But it's nice to have you here anyway. Your mate will come to find you and I'll take her from you then. She has a power; that alone makes her stand high above any in your coven besides Alice. But you don't want her incredibly intense power in your coven. How come? Was she overpowering you all? I can't believe that. You aren't allowed to growl at me, the glorious leader of this vampire world we live in. I'm above the law, you won't hold me responsible!"_

His thoughts and memories held no doubt of his last statement. Every vile act I uncovered was steeped in his conviction of righteousness; and from what I fished out of his memories, the categorized ones at least, he would be a war criminal if he were human. It looked like he broke every law of the vampire world. He tampered with mate-bonds; executed innocents who could eventually be a threat to his power; he even corrupted the whole royal system and not only through enslaving Marcus.

Edward let his eyes wander from the mirror, showing the smallish dungeon he was kept in. Meanwhile informing me that he was strung up in a loose spread eagle way, robbing him of any form of leverage to use his strength. The ropes bit his wrists and ankles, he thought it might be werewolf ropes. What he felt was comparable to what Carlisle described to him once. I noticed Edward was trying very hard not to put Aro's thoughts in his ignore vault, he should give some reaction to his words though. I wouldn't hold it against Edward if he threw all of Aro's thinking into the thought incinerator straight away, even as a vampire I had shivers running over my whole body hearing them. Maybe shivers was too mild, I was cringing more and more with every disgusting thought.

I was almost finished copying everything in Aro's mind when he abruptly stopped talking and swept out of the dungeon, severing my connection to his power and his mind. I estimated that only a few stolen memories remained, those I could get another time.

Demetri suddenly warned Edward that he was going to the clearing with the Marcus statue. Showing Alice that's where he thought I'd be. He apologized for deducing our link, quickly explaining he knew about the link Marcus and Didyme had, because after he mentioned the strange reading he got from them they explained it to him. He just felt the same strange vibe from us. His last thought was an aside to himself, that me being in the clearing would prove our link to him and earn us his eternal loyalty.

Damn, I knew Alice would think I would have no powers to hijack in that clearing besides hers and Demetri's, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try to influence me once again. She would think me to be weakened because I was alone and separated from Edward. She would once again be very disappointed in her own abilities. Edward's mental chuckle warmed my core. We were physically separated but our mental connection was so much more intimate and all encompassing, that it was almost more real in my mind than outside of it.

 **'Bella, my love, for your information I'm hanging with my back to the door. And just outside the door to my left Alec is standing guard, to the right Jane is acting that's she's doing the same. No other powers are near me, did the rest of the family return yet from their lesson in raiding baptismal records of their information?'**

 _'Yes, they did. I'm going to have Emmett stay in the little entrance hall beneath the statue. Alice will also think that Demetri will help her. I really hope she'll choose to simply disappear to the other side of the world. Sadly, I think she won't; her high school mentality of greedy jealousy with a side of spite will urge her to seek vengeance on the person who ruined her pristine little world, me._

 _'Now don't start pacing through our mental home, I need you alert and worry free. I can handle Alice by myself, she's never met anyone like me before. Her downfall will be her arrogance in thinking she's better than me. I'll exploit that. I still hope she'll be smart, confront me verbally and leave. She'll be in shreds the moment she tries to attack me. I'll damn well know it before she will, because I'll shut her down the moment she's in my range. Now I need to go and organize this with the others. I love you, we'll talk again later.'_

I left my mental world and was startled to see the whole coven including Marcus looking at me. Shit, I would have to make it a habit to only talk with Edward when I'm in a safe place.

"Damn, Bella, where were you? You looked like a statue, are you okay? Marcus told us that Aro captured Edward, what are we going to do now?"

Emmett blurted out all the questions in one breath looking a bit panicked.

"Slow down. Yes, Edward is caught. I've used his power remotely and read his mind to get to know where he's held. Marcus he's in a dungeon permeated with very pungent humans scents. It's rife! He also informed me of something going down right now. Alice took Demetri and is now tracking me. I'm going to the clearing up here to confront her. Emmett could you stay underground but close? I might need to borrow your strength. Because let's be honest here, strength is the only thing she can use on me. She can't predict or manipulate me, she'll try to use my bereaved state to overpower me verbally. I'll let her believe she's got the upper hand, then I'll annihilate her. She overstepped the terms of her agreement by capturing Edward. Her banishment has now become a death sentence. Let's move."

I quickly went through the forest exit and ran to the clearing chasing a deer Marcus had thought to set free. I caught the animal and drained it, just to top off my strength. I felt the quiet forest atmosphere change, I was being watched. All my vampiric senses sprung to life. I dropped the lifeless deer snapping its neck to make sure and rose slowly to a standing position, with my back to whomever was there. My stance was hunched, I schooled my face in a pained expression it remembered readily from my human days. From behind me a small giggle ensued, I turned to the sound and there she was; glowing with unrestrained victory, Alice.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the bereaved coven second in command. Oh I'm so sorry, you're the coven leader now, aren't you? Your precious mate had himself captured like a charm. Alone, he wasn't much of a challenge really. Look at your face... shall we go back to high school? I can finally do the things I wanted to do for so long. Right now I'm second only to Aro, it won't take me too long to subdue him. Then, after I make sure your whole coven is destroyed; Aro won't use your powers for himself, I'll take over and rule the world as Empress Supreme!"

I looked her in the face and was dismayed to see the total leave of her morals, she had turned evil, her eyes were red!

"EVERYBODY WILL FOLLOW ME LIKE LAPDOGS, CATERING TO MY EVERY WHIM..." She cried out ending in an evil cackle.

Demetri gave me a quick nod to show me he was on my side, his thoughts were comical trying to find out if I could use Edward's mind reading through our link. When Alice's evil laughter made her throw her head back, I gave him a quick nod to tell him I could hear him.

"Now, you're the cause of all this hardship I had to take. Wearing Walmart and thrift shop trash, looking like a pariah. The pariah you were and always will be. You're guilty for losing me a powerful family to protect me. I'm going to eradicate this coven from the top down, Edward is useless to Aro, as he can't reveal his power. Aro will destroy him eventually as you won't come running to rescue him from his clutches. You better hope your reincarnation crap is true, you might find him again in your next life..."

Her stance subtly changed, I wrapped my green tendril around Emmett beneath my feet. I saw Demetri's eyes slowly starting to bug out of his head. He must have felt my power in my aura.

Alice pounced, it was the last thing she ever did. Before she realized, she was in pieces. Six pieces to be exact, I held her head by the hair and basked in the mental guffaws Edward let out inside my mind. He was actually fist pumping his way around our mental home, doing some strange kind of victory dance.

I started to gather twigs with my free hand, still grinning in Alice's face. I started a little campfire with the lighter I had in my pocket of my very comfy worn jeans. Just as I was reaching for an arm to throw it on the fire, Marcus and Jasper came running into the clearing holding a metal box.

"BELLA, WAIT! We can preserve her power for you to use! Don't burn her yet!"

* * *

 **Now what are they up to? How would they achieve that? It's clear our couple will have a long period of separation, so glad they can still communicate!**

 **my recommendations this week are two WIPs. A Scroogeward and a New Moon rewrite as it should have been.**

 **The Christmas Ship by Alicia Pearce. Ffn** **11679078**

 **Heaven by Drotuno. Ffn 11681717 and FP under her profile Drotuno**

 **Enjoy reading and please show your appreciation by reviewing.**

 **Pien**


	9. Chapter 9 A Harsh Lesson

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **I forgot to wish you all a Merry Christmas (yes, it's still allowed here in the Netherlands, we're struggling with the helper of our Sinterklaas.) So before I forget once again. I'd like to wish you all a spectacular 2016, may all your dreams come true. May all your goals become reality.**

 **Now let's get a move on and see what Marcus and Jasper have in store for Bella.**

* * *

PARALLAX

Chapter 9 A Harsh Lesson.

EPOV

I was hanging around, in the literal sense, but through my mind I could be free in the world; next to my mate at all times.

I was awed at Bella's independence as a vampire, she had proven she was independent as a human, almost to a fault, but as a vampire she had acted as my second ever since her change was completed. She was decisive, strong and everyone followed her lead without any effort. She assured silent allies she heard them when it was necessary and defended herself with deathly accuracy when the time came.

The moment Bella ripped the head off Alice's body. I started running around our mental home, acting like the teenager I was frozen as, fist pumping and wiggling my ass to a tune that was in my mind. I agreed with her burning the bitch to ashes. When Marcus and Jasper ran into the clearing explaining something at top speed. Bella, still full of her very first real fight, looked at them as if they had grown several extra heads.

The idea was intriguing. Marcus had found an ancient method to punish a vampire for eternity. The way I was strung up could also be seen that way, but their method was more space efficient and less of a hassle. I chuckled at Bella's disgruntled face I observed through Marcus, she was almost disappointed she couldn't burn anything; her instincts were still on high alert.

Marcus took Bella by the shoulders and told her she only had to keep part of the head, because they only needed to keep that to retain her power for eternity. He told her to hold off on burning the rest until Jasper had prepared the head for keeping. Bella nodded numbly, I could feel her trying to reign in her instincts.

" _Marcus, I don't understand, I want her gone!"_

She threatened to throw the head into the small campfire she managed to start just before they ran up to her.

" _Mia Cara, listen to me! We're going to burn the rest of her shortly. Jasper has constructed the box to store the head in. He just needs to make sure the head is prepared to continue existing without its body to provide sustenance."_

Bella, sagged her anger dissipating and focused on Jasper after she threw him the head, a terrified squeak left the detached skull after all that was said. Her thoughts never stopped pouring into our mind, but that was easily remedied by sending her to the ignore vault that was now part of our joined vault room. The ignore vault could be used for both of us simultaneously or one of us at the time. When we made the vault room a dial appeared above each vault with him, her, and both settings; when we added someone we could choose how we wanted to handle that person.

Meanwhile Jasper was plucking away at the neck still attached to the head. He removed everything right underneath the chin in a straight line to the back, it was amazing to see him impassive while handling a part of his fake mate. He disconnected the lower mandible and threw it on the heap of squirming body parts next to the fire. Out of a big tote bag he produced two little pipes, that looked like they were stainless steel, and inserted them into the jugular veins of the ... now what to call it... powerbowl. He then attached the pipes to a container annex pedestal and could put the powerbowl upright inside the metal clad wooden box Marcus brought out of the tote, the bottom held clamps to fix the pedestal right in the middle of the box, that was lined with stainless steel again; of course it was, it was the only material, besides glass but that was too fragile, that could withstand venom.

" _Bella, I'm going to make you a power cabinet to put all your boxes in, you'll never have to look inside a box to know the power inside, look."_

He slid the front cover in the box and it held a little sign telling Bella it contained future seeing. Alice lost her name in her quest to world domination, she was reduced to just a power.

Bella scrunched up her nose, sighed and asked me to put Alice's thoughts on ignore for her too. I went to the vault room and put the card for Alice in the programmer and overwrote my name by both. The card was then inserted in the ignore vault and every thought powerbowl Alice had would no longer litter our thoughts. We could always weed through her nasty mental ramblings to find the possible pearls of wisdom that could find its way into her very own basket in the ignore vault.

I drew my power away from the clearing and focused on the castle, most of the thoughts were mundane, just like every cross section of thoughts would hold. Turning up Bella's influence on my power helped me to look past the daily hustle and bustle of the minds to the more personal musings.

One set of thoughts just outside the castle drew my attention and I zeroed my power in on them.

 _'I'm glad Aro is so busy with his new toy and the possibilities he thinks will come of it. It'll give me the time to bring her to safety, I really need to find her a place away from the castle, before she crosses his path accidentally. Now that her newborn eyes have melted away the golden hue will give away she's a humanitarian. I wish I could trust someone to help me...'_

There was the first of our allies in Aro's downfall, who would have thought Caius of all people had found his true mate and changed her, to find that she's very unwilling to kill humans. Her choice was clear, she wanted to live like a humanitarian. I would inform Bella of his ordeal and make Marcus contact Caius to bring him over to our side. It was pretty clear he had found a way around Aro's memory collection, the images he replayed were very personal and explicit. He would never have those at the front of his mind when he couldn't hide them.

Another set of interesting thoughts of a different nature drew my attention. Still outside the castle but approaching the main entrance at a fast pace, looking through this woman's eyes I could see it was twilight outside.

'... _he'll never let me go and find my Amun, if the feelings are correct I think I won't find him ever again. My Amun... My rock, my everything, I should be with him. He won't be pleased I had to go with this brute. Oh, I miss my Amun.'_

Her mind was completely flooded with grief, she didn't know what happened but the male she was made to follow wasn't her Amun at all. He held her wrist and dragged her to the castle. I was just trying to tune into his thoughts when Bella's physical and mental voices drowned all other thoughts out.

' _YOU SAY I HAVE TO 'WATER' THAT THING WITH BLOOD TO KEEP IT WORKING? ARE YOU MAD OR SOMETHING? HOW, SPOON FEED IT? That's a bit difficult without a lower mandible, isn't it? Well how!'_

Jasper and Marcus tried to placate her. I picked up Jasper's thoughts, directed straight to me, explaining how it worked. I also tried to calm Bella down, I asked her what was freaking her out. She then showed me the mental picture she had of her trying to feed the rather nasty looking part head of a former complete person she knew. She thought along the same lines I did until Jasper's explanation which had gone past her completely. She thought she had to hold the thing, her thoughts not mine, and dunk it in blood. The picture Jasper had shown me was far less grueling.

Jasper grabbed Bella's shoulders and shook her hard, it worked to bring her out of her grossed out mind set, she was close to still burning the skull just to avoid the nasty actions ghosting through her mind. Jasper held her and Marcus turned the box around, showing her the gauge and hole used to 'blood' the head inside the box. Both were underneath an ornate plaque telling which power resided inside, opposite the little sign on the box's lid. Marcus then gave her a stainless steel funnel and a dainty watering can of the same material.

" _Mi cara, please don't jump to conclusions. Look, the little hole is attached to a tube that will be attached to the tank the skull is mounted on. It isn't just a pedestal to keep it from rolling around in the box, it's the feeding station too. The gauge will be attached to the tank too showing when and if it's empty. You take your bijoux watering implements and fill the canister from the outside, never to open up that box again. You understand, no?"_

Bella stood there looking sheepish, until she was hit with confidence from Jasper, a wave so strong even I, strung up and alone, felt it coursing through my body. It brought me back to what I was doing before, leaving them to sort out the power cabinet.

I had little trouble finding the distraught thoughts of the lady I heard before, her thoughts still revolved around her Amun and little more, but looking through her eyes I found her captor to be a well-known vampire. A leader from another great coven, the Romanians. At least I recognized him from the images Bella lifted from Aro. She had been very smart to copy one enormous file cabinet, it held Aro's identification references. Every vampire he ever met or saw through memories in someone's mind was represented there.

The captor, Vladimir, felt he was completely in his right domineering the woman, whose mate he destroyed because he wanted her. He held the same strange ideas about mated vampires as Aro did. This trial would be a lesson for Aro, Vladimir brought Kebi, the woman, up on charges of mutilation. Because both Caius and Marcus were out, Aro had to wait until they answered the summons to report to court. It made him very mad he couldn't deal with things at once, on his own.

In the cave Marcus received an agitated text message ordering him to report to the throne room on the double, and he better be dressed in his robes this time. Marcus exploded into a string of expletives, in about fifty different languages. When he calmed down he looked properly chastised and made a little bow to the big painting of Didyme; she wouldn't have approved of his outburst. I thought that I'd like to know how it looked for outsiders when I was far away from my body in my mental home with Bella. I was sure I was completely non-responsive, because I almost left my body behind or so it felt to me.

Marcus told Jasper to take out a trial subscription to every and all genealogical sites he could find. We might get lucky and find a completed tree to add to one of the lines. Handing over a shiny black card in Jasper's name, explaining that it was linked to an account he used for everything that went behind Aro's back.

" _Use that, Aro will never know about that one. I'm sorry but I've got to go to the castle now. I was summoned to the throne room. Let me see what has his knickers in a twist. Bella, can you enlighten us?"_

 _"I haven't done a thing Marcus, Aro should be oblivious that all of us are in Italy. He might have caught Edward, but he could have been in this country alone. I don't know what's happening, but let me walk you to the door."_

Through Marcus' eyes I could see the lethal stare Bella had leveled on him. He almost made her disclose our link to all of our coven and she wasn't ready to do that. As the youngest member of the coven she needed to build their respect for her as their leader until I returned, if they knew she acted how she did because of a link with me they would talk through her to me and not acknowledge her as the one in charge.

My mind was very prone to distraction, my body couldn't go anywhere and that freed my mind to dance around, I was once again captured by the thoughts of a very nervous Caius. He was pacing in his room, busy hiding his memories in a pit of anguish, his mental home was an interesting environment to look around. Only seeing what he saw while pacing, it looked like the dungeon I was in, maybe another room with a bottomless pit; the pit might have been solely in his mental home. I got a good look at his mate before he threw that memory into the pit. My recording device of a mind snapped a picture and put it on display in Bella's and my living room. We would have to find that girl and bring her to safety, she could help us find Didyme. As an added effect we would have Caius in our corner, even if I already knew he was there without knowing he was.

' _Edward, I'm in the castle, I will visit you after we've dealt with the mysterious problem Aro summoned me for. I'll make sure to substitute your bottled human blood with deer, I'm going to convince the guard feeding you that it is to punish you. Please act accordingly. Bella told me you have somebody to identify, and safeguard from Aro to bring Caius into the fold. He already is mostly, he is a closet humanitarian, like me, too. Okay, let's put away my cheery disposition and drown in grief once more, my love.'_

That last thought wasn't at me anymore, I witnessed how his representation of Didyme ceased moving, freezing herself out of the link as far as she could. The sunny glow inside Marcus' mental house dissolved into a rainy afternoon. He kept his outlook forward, showing me around in the castle, taking note of paintings and sculptures, giving me reference points to place others when I looked through their eyes. He warned me he had to go introverted just before entering the throne room through the back entrance.

Aro was pacing in front of the thrones, the guard in livery of each of the rulers were spaced around the room. I had jumped back into Caius' mind, he looked around and showed me the woman whose thoughts had captured me earlier. She stood submissively behind the ugliest creature I had ever seen. The skin on his face seemed to have shrunk, he stood hunched over in a kaftan and didn't seem to be able to stand up straight. He also cradled a velvet bag to his chest as if it was his biggest treasure, his other hand still held the woman's wrist in an unbreakable hold. I caught the scathing thoughts around the room; every guard was laughing at the male. It became clear to me when Marcus took one look and explained in his mind, I flinched from the amount of pain he sent with the thought to keep them out of the memory banks Aro could access.

The male, Vladimir I found out not much later, had set his eyes on the mate of one of his rivals. He killed his rival and took the mate for himself. The effect of this rape was what we saw before us; Kebi, the woman, was herself and distraught with grief but Vladimir was disfigured beyond recognition. The skin of his face had really shrunk, his tongue shriveled until it was useless. He had laid down his grievous bodily harm charges through conveying a memory to Aro. He lost the ability to speak, his thoughts were riddled with rage and revenge.

Aro sat and motioned for Caius to proceed with the questioning of the female. Marcus interrupted in his monotone voice.

"Aro, I'd like to know who is abusing whom, if you please? You have the story and it looks like the male has been stupid enough to stick his tongue where it didn't belong. He can't speak his case, is he giving himself up for judgment, or does his stupidity endure and is he the accuser?"

In his mind he already judged the male with meddling with the mating bond. Going over the one thing that could have happened in his mind I finally started to understand why he kept thinking this would be a lesson for Aro. As it seemed the male had raped the female after destroying her mate. She was the human found mate of her Amun, the one she was thinking about non-stop. What happened to him was a natural defense of the mated female vampire. Like the male who could only get aroused by his mate, the female had her own defenses. Her venom changed into poison for any male or female not her mate. A bite would scar badly and hurt like hell. When the male proceeded and raped the female any body part which came into contact with her venom would shrink or shrivel without a cure. He would effectively be branded a rapist by the act itself.

I realized that the content of the velvet bag most likely was the male's cock, shriveled and broken off during the rape. Aro somehow wasn't schooled in these facts of vampire mates. His thoughts were puzzled by Marcus' question.

"What do you mean, brother, I'm sure it would be clear that Vladimir here is the victim!"

"Really, Aro," Caius said with his eyebrows raised, "are you absolutely convinced of that? I mean his injuries scream rape of a mated female while not being her mate. If you sample every guard present they will show you the precedents on this case and what the cause of those injuries could be. I'm appalled, Aro, that you as chairman of our tribunal aren't schooled in the mating laws and their peculiarities. Did you stop reading after the political matings? We all know those hold less value than human marriage nowadays..."

Caius sounded indifferent, but in his mind a great deal of glee bounced around in correcting Aro. From the agonized mind of Marcus a quiet joy emanated, he quietly nudged Aro a bit off his pedestal. A lot of the guards were astonished to find their leader fallible. Aro's thoughts were subdued and sputtering around what he just heard. He pushed Caius up front and demanded a thorough investigation of the allegations and what led to them.

Soon it was clear that Vladimir had visited Amun and Kebi, he took a shining to Kebi and tried to convince Amun to let him have her. He saw women as subservient to males and more so as property. Amun, a true Arabic male, had some of those views, but Vladimir had one thing wrong entirely. Amun loved Kebi, she was his human found mate, their bond could not be broken. Amun paid his debt to Vladimir the monetary way, but Vladimir insisted that Kebi would be the interest of the debt. It came to a fight and Amun was destroyed and Vladimir wasted no time in claiming his prize; or so he thought. He raped Kebi, forcing her to kiss him. At first he didn't notice what her venom did to him, but when he tried to sodomize her his junk broke off. He then tried to verbally slap her down for injuring him, when it became clear his mouth had shrunken and his tongue had shriveled. The constant pain started up later, when the venom dried.

Emasculated and mute Vladimir imprisoned Kebi in her own dungeon while he tried to heal his wounds, to no avail. According to Kebi's testimony he only managed to separate his dick from his scrotum. She told this with a vindictive smile on her face.

"Sirs, I heard that stupid velvet bag he put it in rattle myself. The last time I saw it his junk was in one piece, just shriveled to even smaller than he already was before. This no good male violated me in the worst way, he killed my mate. Everything that happened after is nothing compared to that. He wants me punished for mutilating him, while he should have known a true mate can't be unfaithful, not even after the mate is destroyed. I came willingly because I wanted to beg you to reunite me with my mate, to destroy me."

She shrank back after concluding her testimony, taking on the complete submissive attitude natural to her. Caius looked to Aro to see if he had anything to say or if he should just go ahead and sentence this mess. Aro nodded his consent to solve this the way they thought best. His thoughts empty, he seemed to be in shock; Vladimir was a good friend of his, but he couldn't get around this conundrum. He had to agree with whatever Caius and Marcus came up with and that was why he was in shock. He felt his untouchable position become a little more reachable.

Marcus and Caius stood to the side with writing pads conferring in total secrecy. Their thoughts were clear though, it didn't matter that Vladimir was a great friend of Aro. He committed the ultimate crime, he permanently separated true mates; there was just one punishment possible... Death. Marcus told Caius he would counsel Kebi before she made her decision. He wanted her away from the castle to explain the possibility of reincarnation. Easily reaching a consensus on the verdict they rejoined the group, it was clear to the whole room that they had done this many times before and their royalty was clear in opposition to the greedy power hungry air Aro exuded.

"For all to hear," Caius declared out loud, "listen to the verdict in this case. Vladimir, even though he's hurt very badly, is the aggressor in this sordid tale. He broke one of the most sacred laws, the law of mated pairs. He broke it in the most evil way, he destroyed one of the mates, making sure they could never reunite. He then further added to his guilt by violating the remaining mate. The violation has its automatic punishment by the permanent malformation of the violator's body. The first act though has not been addressed, and as all gathered can guess, it's considered the most heinous of crimes in our world. There is only one way to pay for that... death.

"Vladimir Roshtock you are hereby sentenced to die for the crimes you committed. Your body parts will be incinerated one at a time in the smallest pieces possible. We will start with the content of that laughable velvet bag. Then we'll work our way upward piece by piece. That way we're sure you'll feel every bit of it. Goodbye, Vladimir, have a pleasant time in hell.

"Demetri, Felix he's all yours, Jane might like to help too."

Caius cringed in his thoughts about involving Jane, but he had to uphold his ruthless exterior. All present were happy that Vladimir had rendered himself mute, they could deal with the metallic screeches without the screams and pleading most, who were destructed this slow, were prone to utter.

Aro left the throne room as soon as possible, without any pomp or circumstance; he fled to his quarters. His thoughts were disjointed combining his ideas for Bella with what he had learned and to his utter disappointment he knew he had to abandon most of his plan. It was good that Bella had joined me in our mental home and kept me calm, because his thoughts went over all of his plans and they were vile, I needed Bella's calm to prevent my physical reaction to his thoughts.

Aro was disillusioned but soon came up with alternative moves that would still make me think he would violate Bella if I didn't cooperate, hoping that I was unschooled in mating laws as he had been. Bella grinned kissing me mentally, and tickling my abs that way too. She used a playful method to lift my spirits, telling me she was alone in our room and to come with her to our mental bedroom to reconnect.

* * *

 ***Evil cackle* The slow downfall of Aro has started. The whole guard, a little more lucid because Chelsea's power is dialed down, saw him stumble off his self erected pedestal.**

 **Let me know what you thought, what your guesses are on the progression of the story. Please review.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Sweet Temptations by LillianBrotherick. One of the most adorable children ever read in Twifanfiction, combined with a total transformation for Edward and a journey to trust for Bella. Ffn 9458588**

 **Across the Ocean by Annilaia. Bakerella throws a bottle in the ocean with a very honest letter to whom it may concern. Who would find that bottle but Edward on the other side of the ocean. Britishward! Ffn 3981103**

 **See you in the New Year.**

 **Pien.**


	10. Chapter 10 Getting Down to Business

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Happy New Year to all, may all your dreams come true.**

 **Since Ffn has a New Years hiccup answering to reviews has been impossible since the 31st of December. The reviews are only added to the total but to us authors it's only possible to read them in the emails we get. Be assured I read them all. Please let this technical error NOT stop you from reviewing.**

 **In answer of a few questions that were in the reviews: Kebi won't be making another appearance in this story of the trilogy. Her plea will be answered in the affirmative and she'll start a new, human, life.**

 **Yes, Alice will stay in the box forever. Her name will be lost forever, you'll see what she's called from now on this chapter. At least the first installment of her new denomination.**

 **I want to bestow the biggest fireworks display in the world to Lorraine who really keeps me going when I'm stuck.**

 **Let's see how hanging around without even a wall to kick against goes along with Edward's temperament.**

* * *

Chapter 10 Getting Down to Business.

BPOV

I puttered around the bedroom, while having my focus in our mental were frighteningly calm at the castle, which meant a bored Edward crawling up the walls, in our mental abode. To escape my jittery mate I had excused myself and retreated to my privacy rooms, I had expanded them. Or divided them in two and enlarged the two rooms I had then. A library with a reading nook and a video viewing room. Just a place where I could watch memories, mine or those hijacked from others one way or another.

When a rather loud piano intro blared through our mental home I quickly made the wall to the open living room transparent. I loved the possibilities of the mind. When the raw smokey whiskey voice of Bob Segar started to sing Edward slid into the living room dressed in all black. Just not much of it, he wore silk boxers an unbuttoned dress shirt and socks, _with_ suspenders, of course he wore the all black sunglasses too. He looked a thousand times better than Tom Cruise, while perfectly mimicking the performance of Niles in the old TV series the Nanny. He wiggled his hips, used a hairbrush as a microphone and was just grooving out.

I quickly dressed in a winter coat and strolled to my door, entering the living room at the same moment CC did in the 'the Nanny' episode. I kept the link closed off to surprise him when he would turn around, it worked and he collapsed in a heap of manly giggles. He just couldn't stand having to hang around in the castle anymore. I realized we needed to schedule major alone time; even mentally we needed to make sure to stay connected and play together.

I found that I, too, was jittery and restless, ever since Edward was captured we hadn't taken any time for just us. We were acting as if we were separated, the one way we knew, from the start, we would survive the separation was by being connected. Strange how those good intentions were forgotten the moment we were separated for real. It was the strangest thing because all the time Edward went to Seattle for Christmas shopping we were in constant communication, here I was a silent conduit saving everything he sent my way.

Our mental avatars fell into each other's arms and I was filled with a strong feeling of coming home. We crept onto the big comfy sectional couch, wrapped ourselves in the softest quilt and cuddled close.

It could have been hours, it could have been minutes but the complete submergence into each other rejuvenated both of us; as it was we didn't want to leave. Jasper was the one to break our bonding. Thank god it was him, he at least knew he was talking to both of us while only seeing me. He wouldn't look strange when I gave him Edward's input.

"Bella, Bella!" He drew me out of my blissed out state. "You won't believe what I found! I've been scouring those genealogical sites on the internet and I found a completed tree of some descendant of Marcus. It connects flawlessly with the tree we have from the royalty book. This tree will allow us to follow the line to the present, we can find the royal heir to Marcus. This man also tried to complete the branches of the tree not directly involved with his family, he was searching for living relatives to connect with. You won't believe what I found when I connected the two and started to follow the firstborn line! That line was unbroken and ran straight on until it ended in 1918, with the death of Edward Anthony Masen, the only child and therefore the heir of Marcus' royal line! Edward is Marcus' direct heir!

"We'll have to research that though, because his line ended with his vampirization. According to the rules we need to follow the line but the first-hand information in the line would be lost if the heir dies without offspring or becomes a vampire. The line will continue as a secondary line. It's mighty convoluted and as far as I can see Edward is the end of Marcus' line, the whole family tree shows a lot of infants dying and only a few kids per generation. So we might have to go through a few branches of this line before we find the current heir."

"Jasper, not to rain on your parade, what you've found is awesome, but the fact that a now groaning Edward is royal doesn't bring us closer to Didyme. Most of all wouldn't a direct descendant of Marcus be exactly that, a direct line of Marcus' DNA. What I'm trying to say isn't that line incestuous to Marcus?

"But it would be interesting to find Didyme's heir, human heir I mean, there might be more vampires in both those lines. Edward isn't convinced at all he's royal, by the way. But he's pondering the possibilities of his mom being the carrier of the secret. Like any undisrupted line would have had one every generation. Elizabeth Sloan was an only child too."

Edward was mentally unreadable for me, he fled into his room and slammed the door, making me wince. I banged on his door and told him in no uncertain terms, that he would refrain from wallowing because I almost broke down his door once and wouldn't hesitate to do it for real if he didn't learn to curb his brooding tendencies. He stuck his head out informing me that he needed some privacy to keep his thoughts clear of me because Aro was on his way and determined to read his prisoner, he didn't want to shut me out but had too because Jasper was still enthusiastically regaling me with all the possibilities.

I had a sudden wave of inspiration and asked him softly if Aro was near already. I dug into my power and connected to Aro with my green tendril full throttle, Aro wouldn't know what hit him when he tried to read Edward and got blanks across the board. It would be the first step into his paranoia. I mean all dictators get paranoid at some time of their reign, why not summon it in Aro now. Plus I would be able to ransack the cabinet with human memories in Edward's mind. I wanted to know if he ever stored any information that his mother divulged in either his conscious or subconscious mind without knowing it.

Aro became comically discombobulated when it seemed his power had disappeared. I made sure Jasper was finished spewing about Edward's royalty, I put my hand over his mouth to smother his girl like squeals. I then informed Edward of my plan, he assured me everything that came in through his power, or our link, would automatically arrive behind his wall of pain, and he filled in his memory of his hanging around with a loop of the wall in front of him, no real memories to speak of, Aro would think he was winning, after a scare of losing his power. I would then, just before he thought to disconnect himself again, yank his power away for a second.

More important, I had now found the armoire with Edward's human memories, it was sad to see many locked drawers. I began to pry them open and gather as many of his memories as possible. Because the person attached to the memories was so interwoven with me and at the moment even the conduit through which I acquired the memories he caught some of it. His focus wasn't on it at all though, he made sure his readable mind stayed clear of interferences from his sheltered mind.

I pondered the ease with which we circumvented Aro's power, just live behind the wall of pain, each and every vampire but me has, and construct a fake life for him to read. He wasn't able to distinguish between true and false memories if the person read was clued in to his power and how it worked. Aro had to be glad not many vampires knew what he could see. The fear spread around was he could read every thought you ever had. Edward had, with his covert actions during his traveling years, seen that that wasn't true and informed Marcus of what he gleaned from three miles out. But every vampire who tried to train his or her mind could avoid Aro ever knowing a thing of consequence about his life with ease.

I dialed down the power I used to steal Aro's power, his memory harvesting started up again stuttering, I felt his big relief that he hadn't lost all his power but his fear of it disappearing was also very prevalent. I was becoming a consummate multitasker using up to five powers at the same time in tandem, getting everything I could from the person I subjected to my power. As always, I was now using one tendril to delve deeper into Aro's immense archive, I also used my powerbox's persuasion, no manipulation, to plant some nasty doubts in Aro's mind. Strengthening his fear, he just saw the first sign of him losing his power, in itself enough to lose his mind too. I used Edward's and Jasper's powers to assess his state of mind as well as looking for emerging ideas running through his mind. That was four red tendrils on Aro, one of the red tendrils was on Edward to harvest his memories from his human life. I knew I was almost at my limit of the control of the different tendrils.

I stored Edward's memories with care, they felt fragile even in my mind. I used a padded drawer in my new room destined for thoughts of others and in a corner of that room was a cabinet that I used to house the memories of my mate. One of those drawers was gold embossed and padded to hold his precious human memories without destroying them. I sensed that Aro was almost done and to make it clear his power was iffy, I once again stole it away, this time only for a few seconds, it had the desired effect on his mental stability, which had already taken a beating before. Utterly shaken he left Edward to his own devices.

After a few minutes Edward came out of his room, and together we faced the family, alright the family just knew I was there, I was still divided inside if we should bring them all into our confidence. The baleful looks full of pity began to work on my nerves.

 **"Easy love, let them look, show them how strong you are! You're still functioning with your mate incarcerated."** Edward talked me down off the beginnings of a high horse I started to climb.

Jazz and I told the coven and Marcus, who arrived just in time for the meeting, about the completed tree branch holding Marcus' line. The general consensus was that Edward would not be happy with the royal stamp on his vampire butt. He was indeed not happy and stone cold refused to believe it. He was vampirized that meant the royal torch was gone to another firstborn on some other twig of his branch. We decided that we would all help Jasper to complete those branches that still went straight on firstborns without vampirizations in sight. That way securing the knowledge in the heir.

Rose told us that she felt we had to return to the United States but her feeling couldn't tell her where in the USA or even which state. She promised to seek if she could find where we had to be. I wouldn't leave Edward in Italy all alone and vulnerable, without at least a state to make the search less complex.

"You all can go and drift from state to state with miss I-know-where-to-go in the lead. I'm staying here with Edward, until you call me that you've found where to be. Oh that sounded terribly rude, I'm sorry.

In the back of my head I already had an idea where we needed to be, I just had to get some more information out of Edward. Rifling through his human memories I was hit by the realization that he couldn't bring these memories up from their prison in his human-memory-armoire.

Loud music started to play in my room as well as in my head, it seemed that brat-teenager Edward was making another appearance. Listening to his musical choice of the moment I was very intrigued why he chose Lionel Richie's Dancing on the Ceiling. I looked through the wall of his chamber and couldn't find him in his room opposite mine. It sounded like he really was holding a party in the living room, when I concentrated my efforts there it all came through to me... upside down and in a black muscle shirt with low slung Levi's Edward was literally dancing on the ceiling... times twenty-five... My mouth went dry, my husband times twenty-five was a sensory overload that dried out my mouth before a steady stream of venom started up. I stood there drooling looking at the sensual sway of his hips in time with music while he sang loud and slightly off key. He was experimenting with what could and couldn't be done in our mental landscape. Yeah, it was no longer only a home, I added a large garden with a gazebo filled with a six person hot tub. The garden butted up to a massive forest filled with simple food to delicious morsels in the form of big cats.

The music still blared though my head, I did the only sensible thing and joined my teenage husband on the ceiling times twenty-five. I wouldn't want one of my Eddies to be jealous. When the music stopped for a moment I saw in his eyes that he had put it on a loop and grabbed the remote from the table and powered down the I home system. The universal remote started up the homecinemaset where I connected the hard disc with Edward's human memories.

"Come on Edward, while Aro tried to read you I stole his power and downloaded your human memories. Let's look at them together."

He was still standing on the ceiling, but my words made him plop down next to me on the couch. His eyes a mix between apprehension and excitement, he wasn't sure he wanted to see them.

"Edward, can you tell me why you look halfway constipated?"

"Oh God, I ache to see my mom again, maybe to see her entertain her guests in the parlor, or a piano lesson in the music room. I do remember bits and pieces but nothing definite. That bit I can live with, what has me worried is the fact that other than the photograph I have I can't remember a thing about my father. Well maybe a scent of tobacco and mint, but that's just about everything."

He sighed and sagged against the couch cushions with a forlorn expression on his face. It made me scan the memories for the ones with his father in them. Scanning through the wealth of childhood and teenage memories I copied I understood why he had no clear memories of his father, the man just wasn't there very often. I had dinner every night but it was clear that children weren't supposed to be noticed at the table until spoken to, and the one time I saw that happening was Mr. Masen scolding his son for not working hard enough and earning a B plus for an assignment. Edward was expected to be a straight A student and had deeply disappointed his father who didn't keep back. The scene started at dinner and later Mr. Masen had Edward report to his home office and gave him a thorough spanking with a belt.

"Love, he wasn't worth trying to remember. He was an absent father and the only attention he gave you was negative. He was a bully, he beat you with a belt for earning a B plus at age eight!

"I've put the memories of you and your mom on that hard disc and we can watch them on the big screen. I also took a leaf out of your book and made some movie snacks for us to share."

On the coffee table I had a big bowl of little balls. The case of each ball would dissolve in our venom, the content was big cat blood. For each of us there also was an opaque thermal drink cup with lid and straw holding deer for me and stray cat for Edward. The cups ensuring the blood was still warm. Our venom combined with the cases also gave off warmth, warming the blood that had cooled inside the balls.

After a barely visible hesitation, Edward pressed play on the remote. The crackling on the sound system was deafening, he put the whole system on mute for the moment. The big circle came into view counting down to the start of the clip. Dust and scratches visible on the memory the flickering image showing a too low frame rate. The countdown came to one and we were looking at two small hands gripping the top of blankets . The whole image was sepia in coloring, but some details were colored in. The lady on the side of the bed wore a royal blue dress with a high collar and sleeves of a somewhat lighter color. Looking in the dressing mirror in the corner the whole scene was clear. A little boy in his bed listening to his mother reading from his favorite book.

Another countdown screen appeared, once we were at the beginning of the clip we once again were watching the same lady, through eyelashes this time, humming to herself while she wrote out a tune on blank music paper. Her dress was now an emerald green with beautiful lace sleeves until the elbow and silk fitted around the forearm.

Edward, all of a sudden, grabbed the remote and pressed the red button. Somehow we now got related memories to the last one. He got three groups of choices, one was his mom in the same dress, that had five choices; His mom in the same room, that gave him a lot of choices, about twenty; and last he could choose from memories accumulated in secret, like watching through lashes, pretending to still be asleep, that group was the biggest as it would be in any little boys memories. I recognized that the way the cataloguing took place was in essence; vampire in its form; neatly categorized and tagged to fit in a structured mind.

Edward chose the last biggest category but excluded every memory not including his mother with a swipe. Then his brow furrowed and he called one of the choices up in a flash. Once again we were thrown back to the time of the silent movies, we watched around the flickering and scratches hoping dust bunnies wouldn't obscure important information. The memory showed his mother explaining something held in tiny hands. My eyes roamed the room and in the darkened windows I could see Edward sitting on the piano bench sideways. His mother next to him gesturing to the paper in his hands. Through his eyes we could see the paper full of numbers, and only that.

Next to me Edward started humming a tune I vaguely recognized; it was reminiscent of my song that Edward had composed. It wasn't the same but it was pretty close.

"Edward, what are you humming?"

"Huh, oh! I was humming the tune on the page. My mother taught me a way to record music that didn't need special paper. My father didn't like us writing music, so we wrote numbers instead... Wow! That was a lost thing until you opened up that armoire in my mind. I chose this because I thought it strange it was in this bunch, I didn't spy in it. But now I understand, this is my mom teaching me something secret, something just for us."

His expression was unbelievably soft, his jaw taught; as if he was fighting off tears.

"Bella, I'm overwhelmed by scents, scents belonging to my human years. I can clearly smell my mother's perfume, a mix of jasmine and lavender. The house always smelled of the roses she had in vases everywhere. Roses she grew in her garden herself, chosen for their fragrance as well as their beauty. The strangest things, I have a feeling of dread linked with the smell of pipe tobacco... But then elation shoots through me when the smell of oil and gas assault my olfactory glands. If I remember right I got my own car at my sixteenth birthday, because I was on the verge of graduating early from high-school. My dad gave me the car to drive back and forth to college. I... just don't know... how I can now link all those scents to blurry but clear memories after so long of nothing?"

"Did you ever figure in that a lot of your memories were locked away by the fever you ran with the flu? I mean, if the body starts to shut down to conserve the vital functions, wouldn't the memories be locked down to preserve them, to not have them running around your mind when effectively just your brain stem needs to function to preserve energy? It's just an idea, but some drawers were open and others I really had to work on, go to the armoire yourself I marked the drawers I had to work on, it might be that the important memories are in those drawers."

"Okay."

I saw him cataloguing the memories in his head, and realized that the menu options we saw on the screen were actually his brains way of cataloguing the memories themselves. It was as if my mind wasn't used to thinking with the freedom of imagination. Our mental home could morph from a castle with stark walls, to a dungeon at the whim of a sadistic dungeon master, but most important to me it was our true home away from home. What we wanted happened even if it was impossible according to the laws of physics, or any kind of law really.

Looking into Edward's mind I saw that he started to accept his royal status. From what he saw in his memories it became more than clear that his mother was the heir before him and held a great deal of respect from the other branch heirs. Edward combined several of his memories into a short movie. When it started to play, the melody he hummed, and that was an important part of his youth, played on a loop.

The first shot was of Edward's little hands petting the family cat, black with white socks and a rakish white splotch of white over his left eye. It was in his periphery where he noticed his mother sorting the mail, two letters for his father, the rest, another ten envelopes she took with her upstairs. The cat walked away in a huff and stalked toward the kitchen meowing for attention and food. Edward nudged me and told me that he had always been aware his mother got more mail than his father. He never pieced together what those things meant. I was about seven steps ahead of him, I knew his mother had been an important figure... now only to find her journals and whatever she worked on so hard.

The next scene was in his mother's boudoir, Edward opening a birthday gift, the sun shining into the room. His mother was sorting through the mail, making two distinct stacks. One she used to make changes to the branches of names she investigated. It looked intricate and extensive. The heirs it would seem sent the changes in their families to the heir of the ruling vampire's heir to be catalogued and painstakingly recorded. The birthday gift wasn't important anymore when it was clear Edward now had learned the musical alphabet his mother had constructed. As his mom hummed he tapped out blocks of numbers. It was more than clear that you needed either vampiric genes somehow, or a rare form of autism giving you the perfect pitch understanding. I mean I never could figure out at what height a note should be positioned. Both Edwards now knew how it worked. Both were translating the notes his mother hummed into numbers by tapping them out.

The hands I saw tapping out the numbers in the memory were almost the same I saw tapping them out next to me; Maybe a smidgen smaller. In my mind I now saw that he was about fifteen. Next came a very uncomfortable memory, we both felt the fever in it. If Edward had a fever so did his mom. She sat at the vanity in her boudoir and she wrote in a journal at great speed. In between sentences she looked up to check on Edward. When her writing was done she stood and walked over to the armoire. Her hand disappeared to the back of the closet and a sharply defined click sounded through the room; a panel on the side of the closet slid down and her journal with a thick white envelope inside was put in the compartment. Another covert hand move and another click, the compartment closed and his mother sagged on her vanities chair.

 _"I'm going to make sure that Dr. Cullen at the hospital will make sure you survive, and get your inheritance for all eternity. It's time to ensure your fate. I'm sad I will never meet your beautiful bride to be. She's stunning. Goodbye son, it fare you well."_

The last bit we got was a sound snippet, his mother's voice arguing with Carlisle to change her son. Explaining about vampire royalty and the lines of heirs. She even gave a full set of rules to decide who's vampire royalty in a line of heirs after the direct first born descendant has died. She also had papers Edward knew well, those were the papers that governed his inheritance to this day. Those papers made sure the house was taken care of, Edward was his own second cousin inheriting the lot.

A burst of violent sound tore me from my mental home and brought me back to reality. Carlisle had come barreling out of his laboratory, his door was opposite the door to my suite. He was calling rather loud, for Marcus. I threw on some clothes, other than Edward's T-shirt I was wearing, and intercepted him. I took him with me to the library room and called Marcus on his private line. As soon as he could he would be there. Carlisle in the meanwhile was gesticulating wildly with a glass beaker filled with a brownish liquid. The smell coming out of that beaker was decidedly human, thus unpalatable to me.

It was too tempting for Esme, though, she came running out of her own suite she shared with Carlisle, but I had the distinct impression that he was still in the doghouse and spent most of his time in the laboratory. Esme pounced on the beaker and splotched the liquid on his lab coat attacking the splotches but soon she let go with a face as if she had bitten into a lemon. Carlisle's concoction was a failed prototype with merit for further testing.

We all sat around talking filling the time until Marcus arrived. Jasper told everyone that he had found the rest of Marcus' branch on the tree of vampire royalty. He hammed it up until Rosalie had enough and hit him in the head as if he was Emmett. But his revelation that Edward was the direct heir of Marcus came as a shock to the complete coven. Or did it? I had just heard Edward's feverish memory from the hospital where his mother explained everything about vampire royalty. The complete set of rules, Carlisle must have heard them, even when she told them solely to Edward. As long as Carlisle was in the building he would have been able to hear her tell Edward the rules he had to live by.

The sound memory could have had pauses that were lost in time. I concluded that Carlisle's memories would have to be lifted next, but that could be postponed. I needed Elizabeth Masen's journals and the letter. I needed her insight into the human handling of a vampire's legacy. Edward had already decided to send the siblings to Chicago and to his house, but he had deciding veto over my thoughts if they were dangerous for me. Furthermore, I told him that without drawing attention to the fact he wasn't there, I had access to his memories which could be explained away by me reading more than Alice, while hijacking Aro's power, during our first trip to Italy. Nobody needed to know when I did the hijacking. Or the fact that Aro had had a scare, and changed his jovial mood to one very dangerous for one not his age and experience; paranoia.

I had to put the unstable, self-proclaimed leader as a sociopath; one experiencing joy from the suffering of others, without the possibility to care about anyone but himself. I put my wandering thoughts aside as Marcus arrived and was immediately tackled by Carlisle—who had produced another beaker of his artificial blood—eagerly explaining that the most important property in his eyes was the scent of the blood. Esme explained that he had hit upon the scent of her singer but the taste, in her eyes just as important for the full experience was lacking.

"Okay," I said, "We found out that Edward is royal, more importantly, Marcus, he's your direct grandson in the nth degree. When Jasper told me that I suddenly knew that Edward's human memories would come in handy, and I was glad that I hijacked Aro's power and copied everything out of the human memory armoire in Edward's mind, when we were here last time. I pieced together some of his memories and I've decided we need to go to Chicago. Yes, me too. Understand this, I can't let the pain rule me, to get him back I need to do everything to solve the big puzzle. I know we need the journals I saw Edward's mother write in.

"I'm sorry, I can't elaborate more, most of his memories are in pieces and from his childhood years. The soundtracks are still missing, it is as if all his human memories were scooped up and dumped in the drawers of the armoire, they were thrown in there out of order. One thing was clear though, his father was absent and abusive, when little Edward once got less than an A he beat him with a leather belt. His mother tried to educate him in more than school related things, such as music and etiquette. I puzzled together some very interesting things. His mother received a great deal of mail, more than his father and from all over the world. I believe Edward had a big album with stamps from all over.

"Okay, Carlisle, please work on the taste of the compound you're designing. If we can make this work we could all stop killing living beings. You need to make this a better alternative than human blood. I think... for it to be a success, that every vampire should be able to drink his singer for the rest of his existence. Maybe make a bland base that is nutritional, then a variety of mix-in taste and smell additions. Work it out, you're the scientist. Don't stare yourself blind on one aspect, use all properties and make it irresistible on every level and for every vampire, humanist or traditional.

"Esme, please stay here and try to work on the other trees. I think we will find and send you additional information. Please keep Carlisle focused too. The artificial blood might be important in the future to have. Okay, Rose, Emmett, Jasper let's go..."

While we drove at high speed to our jet at Pisa airport, I called Kate to join us in Chicago. I was working on a gut feeling I felt the first time at Edward's birthday party. I wanted to see if it would work out as I thought then.

Rose captained the flight, with Jazz sitting second chair, they had us in the air pretty quick. In the air I asked Edward if I could tell them that he would mentally be with us. He was still wary and we decided to keep Emmett and Rose in the dark. Jasper of course knew already. The stretch on our link was uncomfortable, but manageable. Thank goodness, the reception on both sides stayed crystal clear.

Edward was still busy with his human memories and a little overwhelmed by the images of his mother, even if they were more like a badly aged silent movie with dubbed sound, if he found the sound at all. Aro bugged him once more, taunting him with the absence of his mate, his capture hadbeen broadcast through the supernatural grapevine, and an official letter of notice was sent to the Forks house. He mocked the strength of Edward's mate bond, ridiculing human found mates. The fact that a partial shield was the only true power in his ragtag coven made him laugh. He now understood he couldn't violate me without getting mutilated by his actions. That didn't include verbal abuse and torture, he had seen that venom contact had to be avoided with mated females, but he could still torture them through his witch twins. Edward locked his jaw and threw Aro's mind into the ignore vault for later perusal, sadly he couldn't escape the gleeful droning on and on Aro subjected him to for hours on end. Ever since he was captured Edward hadn't spoken one word, he refused to acknowledge any of Aro's minions or the little big boss himself.

I cuddled with him on our mental couch to soothe his tortured mind. He showed me some more memories, while I once again rendered Aro useless just to annoy him and feed his paranoia. My mind was a beehive of different things all at once, until Jasper sat opposite me and told me to trust the things I delegated to the persons I delegated them to. I didn't need to keep track on all of them. He was quite capable to work the trees himself, my task was to keep Edward mentally sane—that earned him a snort from said teenage vampire—and link all the bits and pieces that were provided together. The reason I had to be in Chicago was the simple fact that true paperwork always was preferable over false and I was the true heir of one Edward Masen Jr. albeit by marriage.

I took his advice and dropped the artificial blood inquiry and tried to forget about the trees. Edward and I worked on what the hidden message in his memories was. I was so engrossed in this search that I didn't notice our approach and landing on Chicago executive airport. Rose had done her thing, meaning: we had an SUV with an elated Kate as the driver. Edward told me where the office of the maintenance company of the house was, to pick up the keys. The fact that I had that info came over as weird to the others but I explained it away with ease. After all, I had raided Edward's memories when we were in Italy the first time. The keys were acquired and Rose played GPS to the house.

Looking up to the ancient brownstone within its overgrown garden filled me with awe. Edward, looking through my eyes, ordered me to extend the contract to also clear out and maintain the garden. Jasper took the keys and unlocked the house, he and I stepped over the wide threshold together looking around, feeling as if the century that had passed was lifted. The whole feel was as if we stepped back in time.

* * *

 **Please review. It looks like Edward unearthed the imagination and restlessness of his perpetual teenager in their mental abode. How about their initial forages into the mental health of Aro? Will they succeed?**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Bloodlines by windchimes. Just read this one, one of the best alternate Breaking Dawn fics ever. A very surprising plot. ffn 5085822**

 **The Courtyard by latessitrice. Another classic alternate ending, this one goes in a different direction in New Moon when Bella falls in Edwards arms in Italy. ffn 5542641.**

 **Teasers and pictures for my stories as well as the stories of Lorraine Bubbleybear can be found on our Facebook group: Bubbleybear and Pienuniek's Story Nook groups/769231999887800/**


	11. Chapter 11 Discovering 1918 Chicago

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephanie Meyer I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **I'm sorry this is a bit late, RL, as in my birthday yesterday, got in the way. Tuesday is my posting day and I still made that. I just didn't want to post hasty, while I still wanted to edit it a bit.**

 **Thanks go out to Lorraine for being my rock, a great friend from half the world away.**

 **Now, back to Edward and his stationary position but roaming mind.**

* * *

Chapter 11 Discovering 1918 Chicago

EPOV

Bella walked into my ancestral home with reverence. Her mind was in total awe, the house still looked the same as it did a hundred years ago. I had employed a caretaker who lived in the butler's apartment next to the front door, to keep the house from being burglarized, until the invention of modern alarm installations. When the times passed and modern comforts were invented and upgraded I made sure to upgrade the house, always using the very best contractors to make sure they didn't ruin the early nineteen-hundreds feel of the place. The wires and breaker box were upgraded only ten years ago, the whole house now lighted by LEDs.

The kitchen had modern appliances but they were hidden behind the original front of the kitchen where my human mother baked her cookies, together with Marie our cook. I shook my head, ever since Bella opened the closet with my human memories they sprung to life here and there. With her walking through the only house I knew as home as a human, I was inundated with flashes. I existed half in the present, half in the past, but everything was indirect through Bella.

Her reverence to the house was shocking, she walked with care, trying not to disturb the atmosphere it held. At first she didn't see the upgrades I did to it, just because I was adamant that any upgrade should be hidden behind the old facade. The contractors were very glad that the house had thick walls and layered wooden floors. Between every floor there was ample blind space to hide a multitude of modern things. Bella would be surprised to hear that the house was currently fitted for glass fiber internet with the newest high speed wifi router.

"Jasper, can you please check the butler's apartment? From Edward's memories I surmise that's where the caretaker lived. It's also where the caretaker company stored the mail they couldn't forward."

Jasper opened the door after noticing that the skylight above the door was opened and somehow the room behind the door looked darkened. The door swung open, gaining momentum with the tsunami of mail that came streaming out of the office. It was good that Jasper was a vampire, a human would have been buried. Bella stood on the threshold of the music room looking at my mother's piano, she whipped around, just seeing Jasper land from a frog like leap backward. The whole house was dead silent before they both dissolved in laughter looking curiously at the mountain of mail covering half of the foyer.

A dull thud sounded from inside the butler's apartment and the mountain started to move toward Jasper again, he reacted like a frightened bird as he moved out of the way immediately. Kate came blustering in through the front door, tired of waiting for Bella and Jasper to call her in. Rose and Emmett stayed outside waiting until Bella needed them. They had told Kate why Jasper was alone and she had changed his status in her mind, suddenly aware of things being different, she couldn't wait any more to look him in the eyes. Bella's mind reading made that abundantly clear but the mountain of mail hampered her valiant efforts to get Jasper alone for just a minute.

Jasper snatched a letter from the top of the mail monster and opened it. In it was an announcement clipped from the paper, it was a wedding announcement for a Johan Scheermaker to Tietje Gaastra both from the Netherlands. Johan was an heir to the secret was explained in the handwritten note added to the newspaper clipping. His father had confided in him on his wedding day and given his responsibility over to his son. The date was in the nineteen-thirties. I suddenly realized that the memories I had of my mom in her boudoir and all that mail meant something, it looked like everybody in the know kept sending their letters even after she died, sadly, before I turned eighteen and was made privy to the secret, even if she made sure Carlisle would change me.

My curiosity peaked and Bella felt it. I tried to nudge her to my mother's sanctuary, the rooms my father refused to enter because they were a woman's realm. After I was born he had lost all interest in my mother and stayed on his side of the house, accepting her as the driving force of the household he was a scarce part. Like Bella's grandfather did with Charlie, he wanted to take control of my upbringing from when I was five, he just had underestimated my mother. She refused to hand me over completely. That also meant I never went to boarding school, she homeschooled me, until I outgrew her knowledge and a series of tutors, she hired, took over.

I was delving into my human memories as if they never were locked away, I realized that my mom acted as chronicler for the human part of the royal vampire equation. What we saw here on the floor was ninety years of announcements of births, deaths, and probably marriage and divorce. We needed her work, if it was kept meticulously until ninety years ago it would lessen our workload considerably.

Just as I was telling Bella that she had to go upstairs and open the third door on the right, Kate leveled her curious stare straight into Jasper's eyes. His demeanor changed, his mind restructured around new truths. I was convinced, at once, that we lost our strategic mastermind and our best offensive weapon, beside Bella, for the foreseeable future. Jasper shut down, though, he was afraid to accept his new reality and had to dial down his instinctual reactions. Powerbox one betrayed his trust in the worst way, it made him wary of his own mating instincts.

Bella took control giving Kate some womanly sign to take it very slow.

"Okay guys, I know the feeling but you two have to be strong, this research is important. Especially seeing the mountain of mail congregated here. Just be sure to stay in the same room..."

My attention was ripped from Chicago in the most cruel way, my body got jabbed in the kidneys by Alec.

"Get out of your shut down mode you doofus, I believe the honorable Caius wants to speak to you." He snorted stepping outside of my little cell, making room for one or two other vampires. I immediately hijacked Alec's power and used it on its owner. Freezing him in place and shutting down his senses to make sure he wouldn't overhear the conversation. I had to convey that I could read minds to Caius. In the back of my mind I sensed Bella texting Marcus to let Caius in on my little parlor trick and if he wanted to have me answer to think yes or no questions to me. My incredibly versatile mate thought of everything. Around the corner from my hang out I heard a cellphone chime with an incoming text. The plot was coming together.

 _'I'm Caius, my brother told me you can read minds and have kept that hidden from Aro.'_

I nodded.

 _'Right, from what I hear from Marcus you are his direct descendant and I can trust you?'_

I nodded again.

My power picked up the familiar cadence of Marcus' thoughts, he'd just hunted and found something I might like. He caught a wild boar and had slung it around his neck to keep it still. He knocked it out for good measure, too, just to make it seem like he tortured me with dead blood. After this it would probably be worse, it would only be possible to feed me animal blood until Aro's mind caught up and forbid it. The grounds for doing that? Simple, animal is not torturous enough for me. Marcus' steady thoughts were on the same line of thoughts as mine, only he now had the slightly successful first try Carlisle had subjected them to behind him and thought he could feed me artificial the next time. He had to admit to himself that I would be a guinea pig, and it might be considered torturous to have me taste the crap; his thoughts, not mine.

Caius became restless, and a peek into his mind showed me I had been completely unresponsive to his last three thoughts. He began to think this mind reading was a fluke, I shook my head and motioned to the door. Marcus made his entrance by throwing the unconscious boar in a corner, closing and locking the door, and shoving his phone under Caius nose. He simultaneously thought to me that Bella had taken up my slack, as I was distracted by the food source coming nearer.

 _'Wait a minute, what's happening here? Who in the hell answered my questions, apologizing for your distraction?'_

I grinned when Marcus' phone buzzed again and showed him Bella's picture with a howdy from Chicago with it.

Caius' mind worked overtime, but no one would ever say he was stupid. Even for vampire levels he was pretty smart. Simple equation, the exact same gene pool as Marcus, he just struck out in the power department. It took him all of two and three quarter seconds and he texted back to Marcus.

 _*They're the same as you and Didy!*_

Marcus nodded and elaborated in thought and text: ' _Their bond is even stronger not all effects have shown yet, but after this feeding I think one of the more exotic ones will happen. The strain on their bond is large at the moment.'_

 _'Nice way of putting it,'_ Caius texted back, I concentrated on the thoughts creating those texts, that way I could follow the conversation. ' _You've got one problem though, Edward might enjoy the boar too much... Btw, my mate would like to join your operation Marcus.'_

 _'Athenodora, are you mad? That cow won't come anywhere near my personal quarters, if I can help it! She's as power hungry as our esteemed man in control...'_

Bella dissolved into a giggle fit while anxiously trying to text Marcus that that bond wasn't anything real. That he had to take a very GOOD look at Caius at once. Caius himself was madly typing on his phone to silently answer Marcus' enraged text.

 _'Damn Edward, it seems I should take my own advice, you look amused and looking at the frantic typing going on I've got a rant coming.'_ Marcus thought with a twinkle in his eye.

His phone chimed while Caius was still typing, his autocorrect function getting the better of him. That's why mine, when I still had a phone, was switched off.

* _Marcus, you fool, take your own advice and look for his subconscious loyalties. You'll see, as did I, that Anthenodora is just a place holder. Going through his memories shows that he never mated with her, not even politically. He simply took her to give Aro the idea of him being mated. That way he would stop thrusting his whores at him. The rest you'll have to get from him but he's mated for real; we need to get her on board soon.*_

All of a second later his phone did a double chime, it was the finished text of Caius and a photo sent as an MMS with a happy, pretty vampirette with glowing yellow eyes. The last one had the telltale rough edges of a mental picture Bella made real. Caius' text was a rant that he couldn't stand the bitch himself, that he had so much better. He explained that he was finally mated for real and could go around introducing her, but his mate refused to feed off humans and wouldn't be accepted in the castle, all in an ancient Etruscan dialect, their mother language. I was grateful Marcus' mind translated it to modern Italian automatically.

The next text was surprisingly from Carlisle, he succeeded the very first try to make an odor- and tasteless, satisfying base blood. Until he could start on the additions he wanted somebody other than himself try it. Marcus asked if I would try it and I nodded but threw a longing look at the boar too. I never thought it would happen but living in my mind left me feeling exhausted. I had been here for several weeks now and having my mind running on all twelve cylinders, or tracks, all that time was a lot more than I was used to. It all added up to that boar being a nice appetizer and that was all.

The brothers were now engaged in texting each other and making sure they were once again up to par with the opposite party's dealings the past several centuries. Sadly, it was that long since they had stopped communicating. It was the second time they let it happen, the first time was after Marcus' devastating loss. I decided to give them some room to reconnect, my concentration drifted toward my mate. She was sitting in the parlor of my house, observing the tentative actions of Kate and Jasper.

Kate was struggling with the sudden change in her outlook at life. Even though she never was a morose vampire it was obvious that her insides changed to the loving protective mate she was meant to be. Jasper still couldn't believe what was happening, his strategical mind started cataloguing his reactions and trying to feel out the differences between now and the last time. He was also bewildered this hadn't happened before; they both were. It was a clear sign how strong their bond already was, that they came to the same conclusion at the same time. It didn't matter, his former partner must have blocked it with the false mating manipulation.

"Bella, you probably have a pretty good idea of what's happening. You should know we're going to function like you and Edward did until we can't hold back any longer, then we'll disappear for a while. What we're doing here and in Italy is too important to give in to a possible decade long mating urge. With my power I'm sure it'll act like a perpetuum mobile."

"I know, I understand also that you've been scarred in a terrible way by what's now Powerbox one, more so than all the scars you got from the southern wars. She took the most sacred bond a vampire can have and corrupted it for her own self-serving ways. I'm really glad you decided not to train her mind. She would have been unstoppable if she understood what she could do.

"Kate, congratulations on your mating. You're my sister now and should know..." with that she handed Kate a two page explanation of our bond and capabilities, telling her to keep it secret until all coven members had proven their worth as well as trustworthiness.

' _So, Edward, you're here now too? You're somehow following this through your mate? Is that why Bella can function so far away from you without pain? …'_

The questions came fast and furious but she kept them all in her mind, very aware that Rose and Emmett hadn't proven themselves yet. Bella chastised me immediately that it wasn't Rose who needed to prove herself. She hated that Emmett had been so much more susceptible to Alice's ability and now was the roadblock of telling everything to her first sister in crime. Even though she was well aware we functioned as a coven, she used the human sibling names to classify her close bonds.

I was able to focus them all again on the task at hand, I took control of Bella's body and marched her up the stairs to the second floor. I flung open the third door on the right and was thrown out of the driver's seat unceremoniously by an irate Bella.

"You overgrown clown, how dare you take over my body like that! Should I do that to you too, and thrash around a bit with your wrists in werewolf rope? Let the crushed teeth and bones of those fuckers bite your flesh to shreds. I think you forgot about being a gentleman while you're hanging there being useless."

I fucked up, in a grandiose way... Damn, I hadn't seen Bella that mad at me ever. With hindsight I should have known that my fiercely independent mate wouldn't take well to being mentally manhandled. Of course I began to prostrate myself and begged for her forgiveness, but I wanted some eyes in my mother's boudoir. Not being able to do things that flashed through my mind, while it combined information flowing in at twelve tracks, really began to annoy me. Hanging around being a giant amplifier of sorts made this assignment a lot less desirable than I had thought.

Thank heavens, my indomitable mate saw fit to forgive me. Her mental avatar even stroked my cheek, another annoying thing of being hung out to dry, no touch but torturous touch. Never mind, it was time to stop the whining teenager inside and summon the coven leader to help his mate to find the Rosetta Stone of the vampire world.

"All right, but you're sentenced to the back burner. SIT. Be a good boy and direct me to do the work for you. We won't tear your house apart, but even though I scrutinized your human memories very carefully, I haven't found positive proof of anything."

"Well, I'm superimposing the memory over the actual room now, do you see the desk and the vanity? They are abnormally far apart without anything covering the wall. Those pins on the vanity are abnormal too, we had a seamstress who made all alterations; my mother had no need for pins.

"Look to the memory, my mom used the pins as an alternative to tacks, she hung rolls of wallpaper back to front and with the mail in hand added things to her drawings. The mail downstairs consists of announcements of birth, death, marriage, and divorce. My not so wild guess anymore is that my mother was the chronicler of the human side of the whole intricate vampire royalty thing. I'm very sad she never confided in me until it was too late to save her. I understand with my father bullying us both, she wanted her secrets to be kept secret."

Just like that, another human memory flashed to the forefront of my mind. My father mocking my mother at the dinner table. He told her in a derisive tone, that all of her acquaintances hadn't thought much of her. Why else would she have sent over five hundred marriage invitations and have just fifty couples RSVP. Bella made the connection at the same moment I did. My mother had sent out her new address to all of the vampire heirs! The equation was simple now, if we found my mother's notes and added all the mail downstairs we would be up to date with all of the trees. We wouldn't have to go around the world to dig in cellars of churches and county archives. We would have it all in one fell swoop.

It made my mental body float on air, we made a big discovery, I was so happy...

The strangest thing happened though, while I mentally floated grinning through our home my physical body was lowered to the ground for the first time in weeks. My arms didn't want to honor my request to lower, my knees didn't understand that they had to support me. Because my mind was maxed out I had no brainpower to command my body. I dropped the tracking of Sulpicia, for the next hour she could double up with Aro as they were in the same room. The freed up track was now able to steer my vampire body like normal for a while; instant and fluent to all my commands.

When Marcus saw I moved, he cut the thrashing boar loose, its one way to escape was through me and a closed and bolted door. I had surveyed my surroundings and that bolting mechanism on the inside of the cell had intrigued me. It still made no sense but my logical thinking flew out of the barred window the moment the wild scent of the boar hit my nose, it was pretty obvious from the scent alone, but when the blood touched my tongue the taste exploded; this was no domestic pig. Being as big as a lynx but much bulkier, more massive, the beast had a decent amount of blood. It dulled my thirst but I still would have preferred a big cat of any species. I guess it was obvious that the Masen couple were cat people, sorry, cat _drinking_ people.

The decent amount of sustenance took the edges off my high strung mental state. It was pretty clear that regular feeding was what kept a vampire amenable. The cooperation between the animal and human sides went with less effort when the animal wasn't pacing to get going already, it was hunt time! Marcus thought to me that he would bring me Carlisle's tries at artificial blood. He told me though that when the door to Carlisle's laboratory had opened, it was apparent that this one might be satisfying if you could get over the cheese stench that emanated from the sample. I understood why Carlisle volunteered to do the dairy groceries, he didn't register it at all. He had once told me that he didn't have a sense of smell while human, he never had enjoyed food. He now had a sense of smell, it just seemed it was lacking a few receptors.

When I was sated I let my concentration switch tracks once more, I wandered through my mother's boudoir through Bella's eyes. I could hear Kate and Jasper downstairs sorting the mail by first sorting them by year, and then by tree within that frame. Bella rummaged through all the little drawers and dove into the closet to see what my mother dressed like, how a woman from 1918 lived. I became more jealous of my own mate by the minute, I wanted to look through my mother's things. She was my mother god damn it. It was so unfair that I had to hang around, forever listening to disgusting, vile vampires, disrespecting everything but Aro. The whole castle was drenched in fear, fear of one man, the despicable Aro. The man himself thrived on that atmosphere, even now when his mind was slowly losing grip on reality.

But I had had enough, I wished with all my might that I could be with my Bella, anyway the fates deemed appropriate.

The reaction was a gasp from the other side of the room. I was hanging with my eyes closed, but wasn't aware that somebody had entered my cell, moreover that somebody smelled exactly like my Bella.

Bella burst into our mental den, saw me still sitting on the couch and ran out to her physical body once again. She poked me in the chest... Wait a minute, she poked me in my physical chest... While I was in Volterra and she gallivanted through my ancestral home in Chicago. I peeled back my eyelids and looked straight in the golden orbs of my forever. Hers were as big as saucers, until her phone vibrated in her pocket.

 _*I came to feed your mate some artificial blood, his body was unresponsive though, his shell I should say, because he took his loyalties with him. This is the most extreme side effect of our kind of mating. Edward is projecting himself to you, to alleviate the loneliness, to accomplish things he can't do from Volterra, or wherever he is. You'll be able to do it too. I'm going to feed the_ _shell because this needs a lot of energy. I'll talk to you later, Marcus*_

* * *

 **Oops, now what did that connection cook up for them. Tell me what you think in a review, a pm or on our FB group. groups/769231999887800?ref=bookmarks**

 **My recommendations for this week are two geekwards and old favorites of mine.**

 **Love in My Box by cosmoandmarvar. Encouraged by their friends both Edward and Bella step out of their comfort zone and went with them on spring break. They met and had an encounter. This story is what happened after they parted ways there. Ffn 5782455**

 **String Theory by theladyingrey42. "Eleven dimensions. Infinite parallel realities. And in all of them, I love her." Muppets, math, and physicists falling in love. Fluff and eventual lemons. Ffn 7589412**

 **Leave some love, see you next week.**

 **Pien**


	12. Chapter 12 Discovering Secrets

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Great news, as of this week I have found a great new beta in the form of JenRar. She has cleaned up my act in a speedy way. We also changed the way conversation is shown. So I'm going to give you the new way.**

 **Conversation, even when heard through the link: " " and straight text.**

 **Phone calls: " " and cursive text.**

 **Conversations** **in their mental home between Edward and Bella: cursive without quotation, (as if it's part of their own thoughts)**

 **Thoughts through Edward's power: ' ' and cursive text.**

 **Texts: * * and cursive text.**

 **My thanks go out to Bubbleybear and JenRar for their efforts in cleaning up my act and their support. Let's get on with it.**

* * *

Chapter 12 Discovering Secrets

BPOV

I stared at Marcus's text message and then poked the chest of the apparition again. Yeah, he was solid.

Edward stood there like a perfect frozen statue. It looked like he was processing what had happened. I joined him in our mental home and watched him going through the memories of his last hour. I realized how much work he did hanging in the dungeon of the castle. He had dirt on almost every guard and coven member. He knew who could be used to weaken Aro's might. I saw how he slowly lost his calm demeanor due to lack of sustenance. He'd been in the castle for three weeks now. It was known that mental work was more draining for vampires than physical work could ever be. Edward had had his brain at full throttle the last three weeks without ever getting a drop of blood.

Edward just had nothing left and began to resort to desperate measures, like kidnapping my body to get me to move into his mother's boudoir. The moment he got a boost from the boar, he looked in on me puttering around in his mother's domain. His wish to be there with me was so strong, it once again activated our most unusual link and made it possible to apparate into the room with me. We would have to try it out a bit, but now was not the time. I threw myself in his arms and felt whole again for the first time since he was captured.

We came to the conclusion as a unit that we had to be proud of the very special bond given to us. Even when we were forced apart, we could be together. We were as close as we could be mentally, but now I could feel his body fitting to mine, like two puzzle pieces, two halves of a whole. I felt my mind going off on a tangent of cheesy platitudes that couldn't even come close to the reality of having my man back in my arms. I had expected that I would have to wait until we brought down Aro to release him. That was still true for his physical body.

The strangest thing was happening. Where we touched, he was solid, completely there, but everywhere else he wasn't. When he leaned on the edge of the vanity, he slipped inside it until my hips stopped us from moving. Replaying the action showed us that he thought about leaning a fraction of a second, and the moment the table left his thoughts, he sank into it. That made interacting with him more intricate. He would have to concentrate on me to be solid to me, but that wasn't true. He was in his own world when he appeared. I waited until a particular intriguing connection in his memories had his complete concentration to work it out and poked his chest again. Yep. Thank God he was always solid to me. More so because of our link.

He looked around his mother's chamber and took my hand, tugging me toward the door, grasping first through the doorknob before successfully opening the door. He kept a tight hold on my hand and dragged me over the landing toward another closed door. It looked like it was the entrance to another suite of rooms. I was right. After Edward, again, was able to open the door, he stepped aside and bowed me in. Inside our minds, he told me that this was his room. He told me that the mattress and linens were just a few months old. I looked at him, surprised. He chuckled and told me that he had kept up the house to show it to his bride one day. When he was busy with the coven's finances in December, he'd also ordered new mattresses and linens to be supplied to the house. To my utter surprise, he also confided that the house was fitted with high-grade fiber Internet.

Our bodies could no longer stand the separation, and Edward yanked me toward him to hold me and caress my cheek with great care. His room looked stark, simple but comfortable. It was functional. No personal things hung on the wall other than a big crucifix. The furniture was from a reddish-brown wood, and the walls were white, the curtains dark blue. His bed was a small twin or a big single, big enough for a vampire and a ghost to fit in together. Because he was solid to me all the time, he had to be on top. If he wasn't and he lost his focus toward the bed, he would be on the ground beneath it, if he didn't land a floor below.

Edward chuckled at my train of thought and acknowledged the truth of it. We were so used to talking in our minds that we still hadn't opened our mouths for anything other than kisses. Because we were silent, and, I noticed, that Jasper's power hadn't sensed Edward's ghost-like self, nobody in or around the house had noticed he was there. I could hear Rose and Emmett walk around the big English-style garden. The whole backyard looked like it was a natural hillscape, but every bit of planting was planned to make it look that way. The lack of upkeep made it a bit rough but still beautiful. Jasper and Kate were sorting through the other hill, or mountain, we had going in the foyer.

We should be searching for answers to secrets, but our forced separation, which had now broken, made us powerless to do anything other than make sure we reconnected. Edward was clawing at my clothes with a look of great concentration on his face. He was fairly annoyed that he couldn't rip them from me. He knew I hadn't another set of clothes with me. I, on the other hand, was now thinking really hard about what would happen to his clothes when I took them off him. Only one way to find out… I rid him of his T-shirt. With a shock, I recognized that he wasn't wearing the clothes he went out in when he got captured. He wore the jeans and T-shirt I'd seen him in in my mind. I tore his jeans off him, and the moment I dropped them on the floor, they disappeared. What was rather annoying, though, was that apparition Edward hadn't adjusted to the fact that his jeans should be gone; ergo, he had them on again. His T-shirt, which I held still in my hand, was removed with him acknowledging it, so that was really gone off his body, his well-toned chest on display.

Through my mind, I told him what I had discovered. He was a bit disturbed he hadn't noticed my movements to remove his clothes. It appeared that his apparition had human speed only. He looked up into my eyes for the first time, and I gasped; his eyes were green. His projected self was a reflection of his inner human. This kind of thing would never be possible if the vampire had lost his humanity.

Before my mind went off on another tangent, Edward made sure I didn't. My hands had wandered to the waistband of his jeans, without my permission, to once again remove them, but now I told him with my mind that I would remove them. I was jolted back to reality when I was confronted by a naked Edward standing proud before me, reaching to remove my clothes, while he mentally fell over, laughing his head off for using his vampire speed in his mind to remove the clothes from his apparition. His mental image was as naked as the day he was born also and rolling on the carpet in our living room.

In my mind, careful to keep the silence outward to preserve our privacy, I asked Edward if his prowess was something to laugh about. That brought him down to me once again, and he noticed I had undressed in the meantime. I focused my attention on my apparition, leaving room for just his thoughts through the link. I shut the door to our mental home and initiated slow, reverent caresses over his whole body. I wanted to worship his body. He tried to relax as much as he could, but he needed to stay on top of me. His hands would sink into the mattress the moment his attention left them. Our sweet caresses were intermingled with bouts of hysterical laughter, just because he would hang like a limp biscuit on top of me, both arms and legs sticking through the bed I still held him on. After a lot of clumsy tries, we found a form of the missionary that worked for a partially solid, disabled entity. He hooked his feet on top of my ankles, pushing his knees down between my legs, while I lay with my knees spread and my ankles somewhere at hip width. He had his arms around my back, holding on to my shoulders. It gave us the most balance and leverage. It was also an impossible way if we were both solid.

The feeling of reconnecting was so intense, we both didn't last very long, but that didn't matter. We now knew we could be together even if circumstances looked like it wasn't possible. All went well until Edward didn't think and rolled off me, sated. He disappeared straight through the bed and the floor. I saw him dressing his apparition the moment he noticed things were wrong. He fell through Emmett and had just enough wits to stop on the floor, surrounding his brother's feet. Emmett shot up, squealing like a girl, and jumped out of his brother.

 _"A Ghost! Shit!"_

The whole house exploded into laughter, and I dressed and then raced downstairs at top speed. Rose just tried to whack Edward, thinking his mind reading couldn't possibly be working with his body on the other side of an ocean and half a continent in between too. She made the link frighteningly fast that the special bond she suspected between us, the one that made our separation possible, was also responsible for the apparition of Edward here. The fact that he fell through a ceiling didn't bother her in the least, operated under the assumption that we pranked Emmett, finally getting back at him, and maybe it made them worthy to be let into the secret.

Her blow was full force, and her spinning through after hitting thin air where she expected his head to be caused her to create a little vortex in the room. The carpet she was standing on twisted around her feet, revealing a hidden trapdoor in the parlor. Edward plopped down on his butt, staring at the thing he never expected to find. He set aside a complete track to keep his concentration on being solid where he touched things, but his mental voice rang out in our mental home.

 _Goddamn, Bella. I lived here. I was always in the attic and every place I suspected secret passages. I just knew this house was special. I know we already found the place of my mom's stash in my memories. I just can't get around the fact that the biggest secret creeps up in the one room I never, not ever, dared to explore. Crafty builders to hide it in the formal parlor. t's instantly kid proof—or rather, it was in my youth._

Rose became impatient, tapping her foot and overall trying to get our attention.

 _Edward, we need to tell them about our bond._

Tearing his eyes from the trap door, he stood up and sat down on the sofa with care, testing his control.

"Okay, Kate, Rose, and Emmett." He started aloud. "We need to explain things. This whole thing is much bigger than we ever thought. But let me start at the beginning…"

Over the next hour and a half, he took them on the riveting journey through our growing bond and its possibilities as they arose along that path. Three vampires sat on the various pieces of priceless antique furniture, slack jawed. When he stopped, after explaining the last new thing happening, it stayed silent, mentally and in the room, for at least a minute. Then everything exploded.

 _"Hot Damn! That's Awesome!"_ Emmett bellowed as loud as I'd ever heard him. His thoughts ran off on multiple tracks assessing the usefulness of our extra abilities for use during pranks. It seemed he would never fully grow up.

Rose was more sedate, still working all the things exposed. Even though she suspected there was more, it still was a lot to take in, and it was written all over her face… She was overwhelmed. Vampires would always need more time to adjust to big changes, and it looked like this turned her world view upside down.

Kate sat glowing, rambling at top speed in her mind, talking to both of us. Her ease at accepting it all had to have its roots in her research in the MEP connection.

I sat on Edward's lap. He'd found the right control to make it possible, but he rose up right through me, landing me bouncing on the sofa. He flung himself onto the floor and tried to pry open the trap door. The shining hardwood floor was spotless, no damage to be seen anywhere around the tantalizing square. The flush pull ring didn't help one bit. We could hear that opening was somehow blocked.

Edward kneeled down, still pulling on the ring, jiggling the trap door to try and dislodge the lock. At that moment, I was inundated by a memory jumping from Edward's human-memory armoire. The picture was the view of the big French-door windows in the parlor—or rather, the reflection in those windows. It showed little Edward, maybe five years old, looking up at the glass wall from playing with his wooden locomotive on the carpet-covered floor, right over the trap door, if I superimposed the memory over the real parlor. I was completely sucked into that memory and didn't notice right away that everybody in the room was laughing their asses off at Edward's antics.

I turned and found the grown version of the little boy once again kneeling on the floor, and that's where the similarities ended. He looked like his shoulders were nailed to the floor, everything above them sliced off. A bizarre work of art, an incomplete statue. Until he started moving and talking, the situation didn't compute. Where did his head go? His voice came to me two ways. We were so used to talking through the link that the muffled sounds from under my feet startled me.

"I think I've found it. Let me follow this wire…"

The mutilated statue started to move toward the wall, crawling on just his knees because his arms were under the floor. When he came close to the wall, a soft bump followed by a curse made it apparent that he concentrated very hard on having half of his body through the floor and forgot the back of his head. It had been solid by accident when he came to the wall. The strange dance continued, head and arms inside the wall while the shoulders slid up it. Until we heard some rummaging behind the wall, the wall sconce tilted, and at the same time the trap door sprang up an inch and Edward emerged, smirking, from the wall.

"Found it!" he declared.

He sounded jubilant. I could feel some sort of relief in those words.

 _Feel better, love?_

 _Yes, lots. I did something useful again. Hanging around spying is all for the greater good, but it gets very tedious._

We stared into each other's eyes until Rose stomped over to the trap door, giving me a shove.

"Well, if you two love birds are done with the internal dialogue, let's have a look what's down there."

She went and reached for the ring to open up the trap door.

Mental Edward leap frogged the couch, landing in the corner with a bounce. He switched on the flat screen to the outside view and snuggled into the cushions, holding out an imperious hand for me to join him, which mental me did, of course.

Rose continued silently. ' _Listen, Edward—oh hell, both of you. I'm going to follow my gut, and that says down and out.'_

Seeing she had our attention again, she switched to talking out loud.

"No idea what it means, but follow me."

The others looked nonplussed, and Emmett voiced their collective confusion.

"What does what mean, Rosie?"

"Well, damn mind readers. Now I'm doing it myself. Sorry, guys. My gut says to go down and out. Are you all coming?"

We looked around the room, and it was clear we all would go down and see what we found. A look in the hole, opened up with the trap door, showed us damp brick walls with a set of stairs leading down into total blackness. No light penetrated down into the passage. It wasn't a problem. We were, after all, vampires, and seeing, even in total darkness, wasn't a problem. Even so, Kate ran to the car and came back with two high-powered flashlights.

"We wouldn't want to miss any details in the dark. I always experience tunnel vision in the dark when there isn't any exterior light."

She shrugged, looking sheepish. She was right, of course. Our incredibly sensitive light receptors in our eyes still needed a smidgen of light to reflect off the objects around us to see them; what humans called total darkness still held some light sources, like stars, our eyes used to help us see.

Rose grabbed one of the flashlights and headed down the stairs. Her mind reflected that she couldn't stop herself because the pull was that strong. Emmett was right on her heels. He didn't trust the dark passage; his protective instincts were firing on all cylinders. Edward winked at me and sank through the floor, taking up a position at the foot of the long stairs. Looking around by the light filtering down from above, he saw another set of stairs going off in a different direction. He recognized the scent coming down from that one. He was sure that was the way to his mother's boudoir, or at least her hideout there. Slowly turning around, he showed me a corridor that went off in a strange direction. It seemed to be pointing toward Lake Michigan. If it kept going down on the same angle, it would put us under the lake for sure. The path seemed to be on a slight decline. I needed my eyes on my own path. After almost stumbling once, I knew that looking ahead through Edward wasn't the most prudent. He agreed and went silent, even in my mind. It also looked like he closed his eyes so I couldn't look through them again.

Emmett had inched himself in front of Rose; he was trying to overpower his human fears with his vampire instincts. What he thought could be down there, other than spiders, I had no idea. A quick dive into his mind had me biting my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. He did believe that ghosts existed. How he would protect Rose from the nasty buggers—his words, not mine—he wasn't quite sure yet. Right at that moment, he thought that his size could be a deterrent. I noticed the devilish grin on mental Edward's face. He had a multitude of pranks running through his head. He settled on one of them, shielding his decision from me. He didn't want me to give anything away.

Emmett inched down the last steps. I was the last getting down, so I watched through his eyes. Knowing Edward was ready down there made my anticipation almost go through the roof. Emmett's perusal of the small hallway at the bottom of the stairs didn't show any presence. He stepped hesitantly forward. I split my view to both Emmett's and Rose's at the same time; I didn't want to miss a thing. Rose stiffened when an arm inched from the wall, but knowing about Emmett's irrational fear, she somehow kept herself from reacting when she recognized Edward's Masen cuff. The disembodied hand clamped down on Emmett's shoulder when he was clear from the rest of us by a good five feet. The moment he started to turn, the arm disappeared.

"What?" Emmett barked.

Rose was great. She kept her composure and looked at him in askance.

"Well, somebody grabbed my shoulder… So what's up?"

Once again, Rose was a trooper, aiding Edward with his prank.

"What do you mean? Nobody touched you. Don't be daft. I'm right behind you, and I certainly didn't touch you. Now get on with it…" she said, waving her hand toward the stone tunnel. "Shoo."

Emmett's face fell, and an uneasy expression came over it. He turned back to the tunnel and started to walk. The next moment, he lay flat on his face. His laces had been tied together. Mental Edward did a victory dance around the couch in our living room. I had seen his hands appear through the floor, so I'd known he was doing something. He'd made use of Emmett's hesitation and tied the laces.

"Damn it, what's going on here?"

Emmett bellowed loudly. His mind revealed he'd done it to overpower his fear. He retied his shoes the proper way and stomped off into the tunnel. All of us saw Edward's hand appear above his head and run through his hair. Emmett jumped and started to flail like a teenaged girl in a spiderweb. Shrieking like that girl, too.

"Get it off! Get it off me, now!"

An altogether composed Edward solidified just in front of me in the line, grabbing my hand behind his back and pulling me toward him. The image in our mental living room was the complete opposite. Teenaged-boy Edward pumping his fist and rolling around laughing had me joining him at once. My exterior stayed calm and collected, though. The only one noticing our combined enjoyment was Jasper, who looked at us over his shoulder and shook his head. His mind, as always an open book, told us to calm it a little because he was having trouble containing the mirth rolling off us.

Rose had Emmett calmed down enough to continue. He refused, however, to take the lead any longer. That made Rose huff and go on past him, batting his restraining hands away while muttering under her breath. Her thoughts came over loud and clear, though.

 _'That damn child has still trouble acting like a grown-up. His irrational fear of specters will grind us to a halt indefinitely. Hmpf. He's messing up everything; we need to be on time for the meeting.'_

Edward and I looked at each other, our combined question echoing through our living room. Even the flat screen had it flickering in bright yellow.

 _What meeting?_

Because we had listened in without her intention of us hearing, she had stormed off down the tunnel on a slight decline and headed straight toward the location of Lake Michigan. The strangest thing happened about a mile into the tunnel. Inside Edward's memory room, his human memory armoire was vibrating in its place. I suddenly realized that his memories were stored in the same armoire that stood in his mother's boudoir. That triggered in my mind the absolute certainty that his armoire would also hold a secret compartment. We had been searching for his mother's secrets in the wrong drawers. As soon as Edward caught on to my musings, he was off to the armoire in his mind. It calmed down as soon as he touched it. Only its left back leg kept trying to lift the closet from the floor. Taking its hint, he grabbed the back of the armoire on the left side, slowly sliding his hand up to the top. About halfway up, his eyes lit up and a loud click sounded in the room. In the left side panel of the armoire, we could see an opening of about a foot squared.

Our attention was called back to the real world. Edward closed the compartment and told me we would look later, but he had to close it. He didn't want any unwanted zoning out in a new environment. Emmett was still whining about poltergeists. Edward decided to teach him one last lesson and stalked into my control room, switched on his own control panel, and shocked the hell out of Emmett using Kate's power.

"Bella, stop, please!"

"I'm not doing a thing, Emmett. But I think that people are trying to tell you something. Shut up! Think about how you tortured others relentlessly. Now it seems you, once again can't take as well as you give. The profile of a bully; remember that."

He dropped his head and walked behind Rose, quiet on the outside. Inside he was steaming mad at himself for letting his fears get the better of him. It had taken my rant to spark his imagination, that made him connect the dots. At last he understood that Edward was teasing him.

A squeak from Rose followed by an awed, "Oh," had me looking at the end of the tunnel. The round room there was already lit with torches. The walls were painted from baseboard to ceiling in different styles. One panel resembled the ancient Egyptian style. The next could have been painted by Michelangelo. The most modern looked like Picasso's early work. How could this all be there? Who had done that?

My mind reeling, I began to recognize the portraits depicted in the panels—maybe recognize was a bit far-fetched. But they were portraits slowly transitioning from Marcus's round features to Edward's chiseled ones. I was convinced these were portraits of the guardians of vampire royalty.

The air in the room began to shimmer. We all hurried to the walls, perusal of the panels forgotten. Air rushed in from the passage opposite the one we'd entered from. When it subsided…two vampires stood in the middle of the room, dressed in Roman togas with Doc Martens underneath, each holding a torch.

* * *

 **Please let me know your thoughts and leave me a review.**

 **My recommendations this week are a vampward and an olderward. The first to honor my new Beta.**

 **A Light in the Darkness by JenRar. On one of history's darkest days, Edward finds his other half. Bella wakes to find that her guardian angel may just be a figment of her imagination. A journey of two lost souls as they find the light when darkness surrounds them. Ffn 10108747**

 **The Fox by capricapra. Student Bella is assigned to the supervision of the reclusive Professor Masen. Both are overwhelmed by their mutual attraction, despite it being against the rules. But can their relationship survive their age difference and a rogue academic hell-bent on destroying their happiness? Ffn 9099257**

 **See you next week.  
Pien**


	13. Chapter 13 Where's The Salt?

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Once again, my eternal thanks to Lorraine Bubbleybear and JenRar for cleaning up my act.**

 **Half of this chapter went lost in the depths of my cloud drive, I discovered that months after I had written it. It took a thorough re-read of everything to reconstruct it... but it's here now. Let's meet the quirky ancients.**

* * *

Chapter 13 Where's The Salt?

EPOV

The moment the two figures appeared, I was thrown into my memory room with force. The human-memory armoire Bella identified as being the same as the one in my mother's boudoir rattled on its legs. The hidden compartment flew open, and I was inundated by a memory from when I was about four years old.

I was in the arms of my mother. She opened the trapdoor in the parlor by pulling the wall sconce forward. When she shifted me in her arms, I clung to her neck, anxious because of the dark way down but also exited for the adventure. Mother lit a lantern that stood on the mantel of the parlor; Father had mocked the strange object littering their formal reception room often. With me on the one arm and the lantern in the other, Mother descended the long stone steps with caution.

"Teddy, today, now that you're becoming a big boy, I'm going to take you to meet some very special friends of mine. They are secret friends, you hear me? You can not tell anyone about them, ever."

The statement added onto my excitement, dimming the anxiety. Mother pointed to the second set of stairs, telling me that it led to the back of her boudoir, that she could put documents into a hidden compartment—how she did that, she would tell me when I was old enough.

"I am this now, Momma," I said, holding up four fingers. "Imma big boy now."

She smiled. Damn, it was good to see my mom up close and personal again; this memory surfing could have its perks, I mused to myself.

"Teddy, as long as you are a boy, I am sad to say you are not big enough. But I will make you a deal. If you work hard on your studies, I will teach you little bits you can use to take over your family-heritage guardianship from me."

I started to bop in her arms and overdid it a bit. She put me down and grabbed my hand, still moving through the tunnel. It was the same passage we were walking through to get into that circular room. A short time later, my mother stepped into the room. My adult mind noticed that the portrait of my mother in the style of Picasso wasn't there yet. The same two vampires were already there, waiting for my mother to arrive. She greeted them as old friends. Damn, could it be true that the heirs of the Royal line had, in direct lines, kept the knowledge of the secret world of vampires? I noticed that they both had yellow eyes—another set of humanitarian vampires. Total strangers. How had they kept under the radar?

Although, it seemed that they weren't strangers to me. My mother introduced them by name. The statuesque woman was in her purple robes, much like the ladies in his history books wore. She had the longest hair my younger self had ever seen, because unlike the ladies he saw around him, she wore it down to her…knees? The man was dressed funny. He also had on a dress-like thing, knee length, bright blue, and pleated. Underneath, they both had shoes like his own. Yes, the woman too.

I pulled myself out of the memory and, to my big embarrassment, blurted their names out.

"Amethyst and Alistair."

The new vampires—who weren't that new, now that I remembered—whipped their heads, in perfect synchronicity, toward me, and after a scrutinizing look, they both sprouted eerily similar smiles. Keeping their place, they spoke in unison.

"Lord Edward, how good to see you again. Well, that is a surprise. We were in despair for ages after that dreaded influenza killed half the city. We were afraid the line of guardians of the secret had ended."

I cringed at the title but shrugged it off. The others, somehow including Bella, stood around gaping at the greeting. Their thoughts were in complete fight-or-flight mode, except Emmett's. He was frozen in fear against the wall between the Michelangelo and Neoclassical-type panels, his thoughts completely silent. He had let his fears get the better of him. I shook myself out of the stupor they'd all pushed onto me and stepped forward to greet our guests…hosts, whatever, like the gentleman I was supposed to be.

"Greetings from us all. As you can see, you startled us into silence. Sadly, my memories of your existence have been elusive until I saw you standing before me. I just relived our first meeting in great clarity, thus recalling your names. I'm sorry, but I have to confess I have no recollection of your purpose in being here whatsoever. Please accept my apologies for that fact. It appears those memories were locked away during my change.

"I am indeed Edward Masen. I was changed in the throes of the fevers of the influenza by Carlisle Cullen. I lost all knowledge my mother imparted about vampire royalty or their heritage lines. Could you please enlighten us?"

They looked at each other, and Alistair nodded at Amethyst. I had the distinct feeling they were having an internal conversation, even though nothing could be heard with my power. I nudged Bella in our mind and asked if she heard anything. She didn't either but told me I had been rude not introducing the rest of them.

If I could have flushed, I would have, for forgetting my manners. I tried to interrupt, but Amethyst took the lead and stepped up to Jasper.

"Before we explain, we'd like to know your coven, Edward. So let's start, shall we? Hmmm… Interesting power. An empath and both passive and active as well. What's your name, sir?"

Jasper snapped to attention and gave his full name.

Our host moved over to Kate and assessed her power too, taking a step back to look at her better.

"You're newly mated, to Jasper over there. Interesting, as you've know each other far longer. Something or someone must have blocked the connection. We won't pry any further. My power is to be able to assess vampires, everything about them. Before our masters went to rest, I was needed to assess which of our tribe would become part of the bigger plan. I'm not allowed to tell you more. Don't ask. We'd have to be rude and keep silent."

She moved along to Rose, her assessment brief but thorough, declaring her to be a dowsing rod and expressing her sadness that she hadn't found her power sooner. Interaction with Emmett was still impossible. Rose told her his name. After viewing the statue as if in a museum, she swiftly assessed that his human fears were paralyzing his vampire self, and while she applauded us for keeping in touch with our human side, she didn't like the fact that it overpowered our vampire side.

Then it was my Bella's time to be assessed. She had wrapped both ancients in her tendrils to look along with their powers, not interfering at all.

"My dear, you don't have to hide that you can look along with my power. Yours is the most exceptional one I've ever seen, as well as the strongest one, beside our masters."

Bella looked shy and nothing like the powerful picture Amethyst conjured up. She bowed to Amethyst the Indian way—putting her hands flat together before her chest and a little bow in the hips.

"There's more there that's obviously obscured from my or any power. Tell me, Edward, as I can't assess the spectral form, did your intuitiveness turn into a power after your change?"

While I nodded, I explained that I was a mindreader and what kind. The moment I said that, their minds closed down, but only to me. Bella could still read them. One of them had a very sophisticated shield, and because we already knew Amethyst's power, it had to be Alistair. I gave him a pointed look, and the ancient smirked.

"Yes, Edward, I'm a cloak. It is very specific. It cloaks us when needed and makes us untraceable. If we were not stealthy in our departure and left tracks, I could remove them after us to make us invisible for humans. Our scent, thoughts, and feelings are masked. On top of that, I can do this…"

In the blink of an eye at vampire speed, they vanished. Emmett, who had just started to move again, became a statue once again. They hadn't taken Bella's power into account. The lock she had on Alistair enabled her to dial his power down to the point where they were visible but transparent. Emmett's thoughts blanked out again at that. Amethyst gasped though, and that made Alistair aware his cloak was breached.

"Bella! How?" he choked out.

Bella giggled. "Simple. I already had a lock on it. I already knew you were a cloak—my control panel indicated it was—and because I was linked to you, it wasn't effective on me. You never disappeared to me. The reaction of the others gave away that you had activated it, so I dialed it down." She ended with a shrug.

"Well, my dear, congratulations on being the first in many millennia to breach it. I'm happy we're on the same side. Your enemies should be very afraid."

I started to get annoyed that the link seemed to have been shut down for this operation.

 _No, Edward, but I think you're getting thirsty. You're looking tired in here._

I took the time to look in the mirror in our mental hallway and agreed with her. Of course my mental self showed the human inside right then. The vampire was in that circular room with the others. The fact that it looked like my link to her became weaker troubled me, though. I told her and made her laugh at me. She laughed!

 _Edward, the link is as strong as it has been since I've been a full vampire. Because you've split up and now split your spectral self into human and vampire, you're distracted by managing all your parts. Your attention was on those two,_ she said, pointing to the flat screen showing the ancients. _You also can be sure that your split state will make you thirsty faster than anything. We just have no time to indulge you. Let's hear what they have to tell us._

When we focused on the general room again, Amethyst had brought Emmett out of his stupor and was telling him in no uncertain terms that she wasn't impressed with his childish display of human fear. He should always at least keep in contact with the vampire inside and not let his human quirks dominate his behavior. Then she turned around and, with a glance, saw she had all our attention.

"All right, now that we're all in here with our attention, let's get started on why we're here. My mate and I were given the task of safeguarding the history of our race. Yes, we're a race of humans, like Neanderthals and Homo Erectus. We branched off from the tree in the early years of Homo Sapiens. Our masters had prototypes, if you please—six pairs of mates. Each pair had their own purpose in the big picture. We were given the guardianship of our history and the human genealogy, carrying on the legacy of our race.

"To keep our mission as secret as possible, we chose one of the human-legacy lines to guard that history. From the days dawning human history, we kept watch and made sure there was always a royal council to keep our world in check. Alistair was the one who sired Marcus when rebels tried to upset it by destroying all ancients, including the royal council. Sadly, we had to disappear when the rebellion came too close, before we could put all knowledge in his new vampire brain."

Bella broke into her story after that revelation, apologizing for her interruption.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but Edward needs to reconnect with his body. Marcus is there trying to get his attention. I texted him to be patient, but you should go, honey. He has another trial of Carlisle's. He warned us that it's the base substance before anything is added—nutritious but tasteless."

I panicked inside. I still hadn't worked out how I got here or how I could go back.

Alistair looked at me with a speculative look on his eyes. "Edward, is this the first time you projected?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm still working out how I got here."

"Well, let's get down to figuring it out. What was the last thought before you arrived here?"

"I had just fed for the first time in three weeks. Those three weeks had been physically boring and mentally straining. I missed my Bella's presence—aww bugger… I missed making love to her. I wished with all my heart that I was with her. Next thing I knew, I was standing in the room with her."

"Well, there's your answer, then. All things related to your bond are initiated by wishes. Only when the bond can accommodate the wish will it instantly happen. You could wish for more money or to be destroyed, but it wouldn't comply because the bond can't do those things. One is self-serving, and the other is destructive to the bond. Now hop along and return when you're fed, and we'll be here waiting. We will just get to know your coven better. When you're in your body again, it'll jumpstart the mental bond too. It is bound to be less prominent right now, as your body is conserving energy by shutting secondary connections down or dialing them back. Now wish yourself back to your body, and we'll see you in about an hour. Please say hello to Marcus. It's time that he knew we are still existing."

I bid them farewell and thought about my body and feeding and then wished to be there.

 _'Edward, listen to me. You've got to reverse what you did to get there…_ '

Marcus was trying to make me listen to his explanation, urgently speaking in his mind. He, too, was explaining how the projecting thing worked. He just called it transporting. I listened around with my mind and ears to make sure we were alone.

"Marcus, I know. It just has some side effects. My power here works but records without sending it through to my mental body."

Marcus jumped about a foot in the air when I suddenly spoke.

"Aaaah, Eduardo. _Al diavolo_! So, you've found your way back, no?" He reverted to his Italian way of speaking.

"Well, yes. We met your sire. Greetings from Alistair. He helped me find how to reverse the process. The reason I'm back is my desperate need for sustenance. Bella said you had something for me."

"Edward! Slow down, please. You're blowing my mind. My sire was destroyed millennia ago. The rebels got to him before he could teach me everything. But… I never told you his name. How? Why did he leave? You can't just leave me hanging here."

"First of all, I think I'm the one hanging here. But to tell you the explanation he gave me, he had to flee to make sure the rebels didn't get him. His big assignment was more important than teaching you all the rules. More I don't know because my focus started to falter. Right now I feel like the laundry I'm acting out. The projection takes a lot out of one of us. So please, feed me."

Marcus brought a gallon jug into my view. I knew because he was alone that I had to feed hanging. We would make a hell of a ruckus if he let me down alone. He saw my doubtful look at the jug. If he stood on a stool, he could reach my mouth, but it wouldn't be pretty. Then I noticed the jug was already opened, but I couldn't scent any blood in it.

"Marcus, what is that? I know it isn't blood."

"Well, as it seems that Carlisle went overboard with the first sample that turned out to be Esme's singer scent, he already had a large quantity of the base blood ready. He just didn't realise, or he wanted to do too well with his first try. His second trial was his second-choice batch, one he didn't know smelled like cheese… Most interesting, really. Aa vampire with part of his senses missing. This is the base of his first batch, nothing added for taste. This is the nutritional part or the equivalent of plasma and depleted red blood cells. No proteins, minerals, or hormones that construct the flavour of blood for us."

He brought a tube, resembling an artery, from his pocket, put one end in the jug and, with a look in my eyes, brought the other end to my mouth. Of course I'd envisioned gulping while he poured the stuff in my mouth, spilling it all over me; a straw was much more practical. I started to suck on the tube, and my mouth filled with a liquid with the consistency of blood, but my tongue only found a subtle taste of iron. It was the strangest thing ever, neither hideous nor fabulous; it just was. The moment it hit my stomach, though, it felt as if I'd drained a big deer. It took me under a minute to drink the tepid fluid. That was the greatest drawback… It felt like drinking a dead animal.

"And?" Marcus probed eagerly.

"Well, it's certainly nutritious. My stomach feels satisfactory full. That's most of the good points. You said it was the base that everybody uses to add their own flavor? Then the taste should go into the good points too. It's somewhat reminiscent of iron but not at all overtly. Like this, it actually only left a texture feel behind, no real taste at all. The texture comes very close to blood, also a good point. Okay, I admit it's doing its job, but a pleasant experience? Nah, not like this. I'd rather drink a deer than this without tastemakers."

"I'll give your report to Carlisle. He said this would have to sustain you for about two weeks, in normal circumstances. Now, taking into account you're doing exceptional mental work right now, I believe we should go for a week. I'll let you go back to your mate in just a second. I just want to give you a short repost on the last developments outside the castle here.

"First of all, Aro. He's starting to show signs of paranoia. He came down here while you were in Chicago. Apparently your mind was completely silent to him. Not a peep came through. He's now fearing his power is leaving him, and he's grabbing everyone to test if he can still read them."

Marcus leaned back against the wall and looked like he settled in to tell the past two days of activities in minute detail. I had to stop this. I could, with relative ease, fish everything from the recordings in my mind. Even everything in the cave was within my range, just.

"Marcus, sorry to interrupt. No doubt this would be all very interesting, but my coven is waiting for me to return to them before your sire and his mate talk them to sleep. They know how to spin a tale, that's for sure. I just think they are elated to talk to new listeners after nearly a century. I don't want to curb your re-emerging enthusiasm, but I hope to get some real clues about finding Didyme's reincarnation out of these cryptic buggers. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to return to acting like laundry."

In his thoughts, Marcus tried to simultaneous think three different reports to me while he apologized out loud from a fourth track. I put everything aside, closed my eyes, and wished to be with Bella again.

When I heard Alistair's voice droning on as if he was lecturing my coven in vampire history over the centuries, I knew I had succeeded. Bella's mental voice and presence in our mental home were again present loud and clear—no more lagging or shutting down parts because I hadn't been fed enough. Bella and I went over everything Marcus had told me in those last few seconds of triple thinking. The most interesting part was the fact that Esme had dowsed the position of Caius's mate. As of that moment, the accuracy of that dowsing was still undetermined. I'd just started to dig through the recorded thoughts from Aro when Alistair noticed I had reappeared. Well damn. The rest of the perusal had to wait, it seemed.

"Ah, we're all present once again. Let's proceed. We're going back in time now to the beginnings of the royal lines. Just follow us."

With that short statement, the two ancients again moved in perfect synchronicity, this time toward the as of yet unexplored tunnel in this vast underground complex. It turned out to be an endless corridor with rooms on either side. None of the rooms had doors, and every room was lit by a single torch that blackened the ceiling. We walked at a slow vampire speed, which gave us time to look into the rooms through the wide archways. Each room held twenty panels with genealogical information, another twenty with reproductions of art pieces from around the world, and a trunk. It was clear that we were traveling back in time.

The first art I spotted had been all the rage when I was human: Monet, Caillebotte, Gauguin. The next pieces I took notice of were from the Renaissance, followed by several rooms that held Medieval art, before a number of rooms built up inside in Roman and Greek architecture, showcasing pottery instead of paintings. The last room I looked in had panels that were painted like the cave drawings found all over the world. While we walked deeper and deeper underneath Lake Michigan, the corridor began to spiral tighter and tighter. The rooms were now only on the left side of the corridor. They stretched from square to long, narrow rooms that followed the curve of the spiral.

We came to a stop in another circular room that lay in the center of the spiral. In this room, there were twenty panels that only held the symbols Jasper had discovered on the envelopes of our mail mountain. Every branch of this tree of vampiric royalty had its sign, and this room seemed to be the representation of the start of all of them. Besides the symbol, there was just one painting in this room. It depicted a bird's-eye view of an island with three large mountains situated in a triangle on its surface.

It was at this painting the ancients looked with reverence. They bowed and murmured, "Masters."

* * *

 **Tell me what you thought of the ancients, what are they really doing there? It looks like Carlisle has found his stride, and is close to finding the artificial blood they're looking for. How will he resolve the taste element of the equation?**

 **my recommendations this week:**

 **The Bull Rider by Edward's Eternal. Bella's an exemplary student who enjoys her part-time job at the University, helping with event days; except when she has to deal with one particular sponsor. Edward Cullen runs the most popular country bar in the area. Handsome, charming and cocky, he only has eyes for one member of the student body. Can he ever make her see beneath the facade? Ffn 1986894 and Ficpad under her profile EternalE.**

 **My Heart My Home by Edward's Eternal. Edward Cullen, constantly in the spotlight, sought after British actor has had problems with his staff. He needs a new housekeeper. Bella, his manager's sister, is in a tight spot and needs a job. They meet... They talk... They bond. But how deep does the bond go? Can either of them figure it out? Will he realize what he already has? Ffn 9993980 and on FicPad under her profile EternalE**

 **Please review, see you next week**

 **Pien**


	14. Chapter 14 How to Catch an Heir

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just borrow her characters to play in my plot. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **I like to thank Lorraine for always keeping me on track when I need it. JenRar once again very fast service with your awesome betaing skills.**

 **The ancients are still occupying everyone's attention, is that their intention? Why are they there now? Let's just go and see.**

* * *

Chapter 14 How to Catch an Heir.

BPOV

After the ancients said "Masters," I froze. What in the blazes was this? After my little power demonstration earlier, both ancients had locked up their minds. Neither Edward nor I could penetrate the block they threw up, or should I say the shield Alistair cloaked their minds in. I checked—while I could still wrap them up in one of my tendrils and access their powers, he'd closed off our mind reading very effectively. I had to give them credit. Edward, however, had been in the castle with every part of his attention. If projecting had one drawback, it would be the fact that sharing everything mentally was impaired quite a lot. Maybe that was because it all was so new. I hoped so.

Edward was more on the ball this time around and nudged me to show he was with me, in mind. On the outside, he demonstrated a completely different persona; he had changed from curious follower to coven leader in charge.

"What do you two want to show us here besides riddles? Those three mountains are your masters? I'd like to get some explanation about everything you try to get past us here! _Now_!"

"Edward, we're so sorry. We shouldn't have said that out loud. It's information you all need to earn by solving mysteries that have arisen during history. After we explained what we do here, you'll have to finish your quest and reunite Marcus with his mate. We will give you a small locked box that will be special to her. The _right_ heir will trigger the box to open. You are on the right way to find who you're looking for." Alistair said, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

"Now, we gave some of it away. This room represents the start of our race. How or why that is has to be left for the future. This is the seventh sanctuary we've built over an enormous length of time. When the heirs in your line decided to build a house in the new world, we started the first sanctuary on this side of the world. The house of your ancestors was protected by a clause in the will of each heir. It could only be inherited by the oldest child, male or female. Furthermore, the will dictated that the heir had to live in the house his or her entire life. Female heirs were protected further. The spouse they were marrying would forfeit their dowry if they refused to comply. It drove your father almost mad with rage that he had to live in your family's house.

"I'm sad to say that arranged marriages were commonplace when you were young. Your father accepted living in the family home because your mother's father was his boss, which meant he had to follow through with the deal to keep his job, as well as to be able to rise on the social ladder. The fact that your mother would have liked more children didn't sway him at all when his firstborn was a son. He'd done his duty, and after that he sought his comfort outside of the home. The fact that it wasn't his house did play into that as well. We watched him from afar and are sad to say he was a callous man, with sky-high expectations for you."

Edward interrupted them, exasperated. "I know my past, and I'm here for possible insight into our quest to find Didyme's reincarnation, something that's still a hunch we're working on. My human memories are all unlocked now, and that also brought back my father's cruel nature. Now please explain to us what this place is."

Amethyst looked contrite. "I need to stop my mate from antagonizing you any further. After watching history for millennia, we have forgotten that going forward toward a goal is how most creatures live. We are watchers, and we aren't used to showing others their way; it is not our task to do so. I can reveal that the incarnation theory is true, though. Souls separated from their eternal mate will always search until they're together again. Even if one of them is lost for a long time.

"Marcus has been lost in trivialities due to his manipulating brother-in-law. It is sad that not all souls are directed in the way of peace or are selfless from their inception. Follow Didyme's line to find her incarnation. She's always been in that line, if only in side branches, until now. Somehow the stars have converged to have her as the heir when her mate's line started the search.

"I made your search easier. Now please, follow me to the lines over the ages. Down here is the only complete rendering from the Stone Age to a century ago. When you all can find the time, we'd like to collaborate to once again make them complete. Until we find and inform the heir of your line, Edward, there is no official guardian of the lines in the human world. We track down the new heirs of every line when it stops in one branch, and we inform them of their task to keep their inheritance documented and how to do that. Before your mother died and stopped our information flow, we could simply follow the trees and pick up all information from the files. Sometimes the search took us beyond the information provided because the heirs only report on direct family, their brothers and sisters, not on cousins, etcetera. If the new heir isn't a direct set over to a sibling, we need to do our own tracking.

"Keeping the lines alive and aware is our main task. The second one is to keep true royalty in rule. That's why Alistair changed Marcus. It's unfortunate that because he's technically still in the council, we can't do anything to depose Aro, who came from a royal family line, but his elder sisters set him outside the royalty scope. Three weeks after Didyme's change, her sister gave birth to her first child. Aro was grief-stricken by the disappearance of his eldest sister. She had been his mother figure for ten years. He resented his second sister for not showing any grief; after all, being introduced to the secret had made her privy to the fact that Didyme had been changed. He had eavesdropped enough to have basic knowledge of vampire royalty. He just never connected the dots until Didyme came back to have him changed out of pity and because she missed him. His resentment transferred to her after that. He thought himself omnipotent because of his gift and hated his ceremonial post as captain of the guard. I'm convinced Marcus informed you of the rest. Maybe the indomitable Bella even lifted it from his own mind?"

Now that gave us some information on things in the past, but it wasn't anything new. I began to lose my patience with those ancients living in their own reality. They had set themselves apart from the flow of time, just watching over it. I began to see we could probably learn a lot from them, but it wouldn't set us on the path to find Didyme. They made it more than clear that they would provide us with a simple way to prove we found the heir but not how to find her. They'd told us the line to use to find the heir. That information, however, was antiquated, as we had found that for ourselves already too.

Edward plopped next to me on our couch. _Bella, honey, I'm completely on the same track you are. I'm getting really tired of their side roads into history. They analyzed Aro's motivations accurately, and if you hadn't raided his mind, it would have been a real eye opener. Now, however, it's a load of rehashing crap. Let's stop it and get moving again, until the next history lesson. You never know… We might get lucky and learn something new and useful._

I nodded and brought my attention back to the still-talking Amethyst. Mentally, both Edward and I sat slouched on the couch, feet on the coffee table, munching blood balls.

"Follow us," Amethyst said while walking out of the chamber. _Thank fuck..._ "This sanctuary holds the complete genealogical trees of each of the twenty royal lines. There are about thirty chambers, each holding twenty panels with the trees over a certain timeframe. Then there is a chest with a more comprehensive history of the happenings in the period, limited to big historical events and the family history of the heirs."

She led us back to the first chamber. To our surprise, this one had empty panels and the trunk stood open without any content.

 _Do we really have to emphasize that the last hundred years, no one went and sorted the mail? Goddamn, they're very up to speed, but they can't go into an empty house and take the mail? I'm getting mighty irritated by their higher-than-thou attitude. Their "we're more than just vampires" vibe they like to exude. Do I need to elaborate any more?_

Edward sat next to me, drumming on his legs. He was right in my view. I believed that for ignorant humans having to do the work so they could transcribe it onto fancy panels, their ways would do it. They'd be just vampire scary enough to have the human faithfully do their bidding. To be knowledgeable vampires, it becomes an exercise in cryptic clues to things that are unimportant to the matter at hand. We had to get out of there. We had to finish those trees, give them facts to paint their fancy panels, but most of all to give us usable facts to go on. This guided tour was just depleting the projecting juice Edward had taken in on nonsense. That was it.

"Alistair, Amethyst, I'm sorry, but once again this history lesson in your tasks isn't conducive to the completion of our search. I'm sure we're all glad you told us our shot in the dark is right, and we appreciate the box you'll give us to make sure we got the right heir. The bottom line here is that we need Edward here on his A-game, and this standing around listening to history isn't the most productive way to use his limited blood supply. So I'd like to thank you for your time, but we need to take our leave now. Good night."

I took Edward's hand and started to bring the gloating bastard back to the parlor. Behind us, both ancients sputtered an apology and pushed a box into Emmett's hands. Kate took it upon herself to apologize for our blunt departure before all of our group followed us up to the parlor. Edward set himself next to the trapdoor, and as soon as everybody exited the sanctuary, he dropped the door closed with a bang. He then stood as still as a statue and threw his power out as wide as it would go. I ran into the control room and gave it a whirl to its maximum setting. As expected, the ancients had misjudged his range by several miles.

 _'Well, that took them long enough. They must have hoped we could give them more actual information. Their diet must give them more civilized manners. They were all politely listening to my endless ramblings about our history, although it seemed that their leaders are more knowledgeable on most of it. If I ever have to endure them that bored again, I'll have to set aside my rules and inform them of certain things. Ah well. It all proves our masters' belief in the humanitarian diet.'_

Amethyst's thoughts rang out loud and clear. Edward snorted inside my head until I leveled him with a death stare. He went over and sat on one of the sofas, motioning to us all to join him. When we were all seated, he took the lead.

"All right. Interesting as all that was, Bella was right. We need a game plan to go forward. So let's break it up into tasks each couple here can tackle. Kate, Jasper, it would be of great help if you two could finish going through the mountain of mail. You're now getting familiar with each tree. Please search out especially Didyme's tree or, at least, sort everything but work out only that tree. We need to know where it ends. Rose, please start trying to work out where to go for Didyme's heir. If you get a feeling, you and Emmett should follow up."

His decisive speech stopped, and he got a very sad look on his face. He sighed and went on. "I think I'll need to go back to hanging around the castle to further our efforts there to bring Aro down as soon as we have located the reincarnation. Bella, do you think it's necessary to stay here, or could your efforts be done from Marcus's cave?"

Emmett sat forward and interrupted Edward's direction of his troops. "If I may… The ancients dropped this on me, and I think you two should keep it safe until we have a prospect for the reincarnation. We know now who it is, the current heir of Didyme's line. I mean damn, guys, you're the up-and-coming royal couple…"

The moment that sentence left his mouth, Edward shot from his seat, glaring at Emmett. "Stop that reverent nonsense right this minute. Yes, I'm from a royal line. I'll probably end up being part of the royal council. Next thing to be proven is impossible because skank-ho Renee doesn't know who Bella's father is. Yes, she's my mate, but first and foremost she's my equal and the co-leader of this coven. She doesn't tell you what to do because I told her to. She does it because she decided it on her own. It's logical that we discuss and form our opinions together, even more because of our connection, but know this. If Aro flips and destroys me, she'll do it alone until she can find me again."

Emmett raised his hands in a placating manner. "All right, all right. Slow down. Jeez, man, could you be a little more uptight about that?" he said while sarcasm dripped from his words. "I just want to know what to do with that box."

That stupid box should be where the heir was. I didn't want to traipse around behind the front troops with the box just to confirm if our guess was right. "You know, Emmett," I said, "keep the box with you. I'm going back to Italy. Even though Edward can project now, this whole situation isn't sitting well with me. When he's here, he can't monitor the castle the way we'd like. You and Rose will be on the frontline in this search. You'll need the proof when you find someone who matches the criteria. Take it with you. Plus, they entrusted it to you. It's your task."

He put the box in the middle of the coffee table. It was a metal box with a handprint on the top. Each fingertip had a contact point—at least, that was what I thought they were. In the middle of the palm was another one just the size of half a golf ball. The scent wasn't familiar to any of us. The metal was not from Earth!

"Well, it smells like our true ancestors were space travelers. Please, Rose, start trying to find your way. We need the reincarnation of Didyme as well as the heir of her line. Find one, you'll find both, as is often the case," I told them.

Edward didn't show any outward sign of agreeing with me. Mentally he said he was testing their level of loyalty to me as his equal in the coven. They didn't disappoint him. Rose, of course, stood up and started mumbling about what she was looking for, setting the stage to make her power—as the ancients had confirmed, it was more than an ability—do its job. After about five minutes, she closed her eyes and started to slowly turn on the spot. After another few minutes, she came to a stop with a jerk, facing the mountain of mail in the foyer. We all followed, fascinated by her demonstration. Her eyes still closed, she began to go through all the letters, holding each one for a fraction of a second and then putting them down in several piles.

Jasper stepped up to the piles and went through them while a big grin grew on his face. From his mind, it was clear that Rose was sorting them into their trees. Soon it became apparent that some heirs hadn't taken keeping the secret to just the heirs. Maybe that bit had been lost during the ages. There were three trees, recognizable by their mark on the envelopes, where numerous heirs were sending in information at the same time; the stamps on the letters clued us in to that. After about half an hour, Rose had done the job, sifting through the complete mountain. What we hadn't noticed was that she'd held back a stack of letters.

Rose opened her eyes and presented the stack to me. "These should all go to Didyme's line. The final one will show us our starting point. But the feeling won't become solid yet. I'm afraid that this line of heirs has somehow stopped sending in their information. Don't ask me how I know. It just popped into my brain. But let's sort this tree to its end and then go where it leads us.

"Oh, Kate, could you please go out and get Emmett and me some stage make-up and elbow gloves? We will need to go to sunny places and will need the cover. A good pancake should keep our faces from sending the humans into a panic. The gloves will aid too. Make-up on hands is just not a good idea. It'll come off whenever you touch something."

Kate was out of the door like a flash, but not before she planted a good one on Jasper, taking him by surprise. He sat back on his heels for three minutes straight, staring at the point she'd left his view. After that, he took the pile of letters Rosalie held and asked her to help him put them in order. Why bother opening them all when you could start at the very end of the tree without opening the rest? Rose brought out a beautiful crystal pendulum while Jasper spread out the letters.

Rose once again closed her eyes and hung the crystal over the spread of letters. I had seen that more than I cared to remember. The ladies on the reservation dowsed every major decision of the tribe. They were first spoken about, then dowsed, and finally they made the decision on the outcome, however harebrained that decision was. To say I was a skeptic was a gross understatement. I saw, however, that the crystal in Rose's hands acted completely different from those ladies at the Rez. From them, I could see them steering the pendulum their way, with human eyes. Rose, however, didn't move an eyelash. Her pendulum moved on its own in an erratic way. It took Jasper and me a minute until we deciphered what the thing showed us. The intricate movement with sharp corners gave us the order in which to pick up the letters. Every time it started its movement anew, it held still over one singular letter for a second.

Jasper grabbed that letter. To our astonishment, the pendulum reacted immediately by holding its position over the next one just long enough for Jazz to grab it. Ten seconds later, he held the stack again but now in the right order. He gave me the top letter, opening the bottom one himself. My letter came out dated in the nineteen twenties. His letter would give us the starting point for our hunt.

Edward and I sat, stunned, on our couch. It was crystal clear that Rose's ability was far more than that. Amethyst's assessment was spot on. We had to agree to that, even if we didn't like it… How it had escaped everybody's attention that Rose could accurately steer decisions was very clear; until Alice and Jasper joined the coven, it hadn't been necessary to have a guide. They had moved from small town to small town, following Carlisle's wishes to be more human than the humans themselves. After they joined, Alice had taken control of the decisions by pushing her ideas onto everyone. Her manipulating ability must have kept Rose's power vague and inactive. However else could she now have so much control?

Jasper had read the letter for himself and started laughing really hard. I snatched it from his hands and read:

 _To whomever it may concern,_

 _My mother told me a fantastic story. I was very tempted to scoff and dismiss all of it. Then I found the trunk with family diaries, going back without end. he earliest were even written on scrolls and even one on a stone tablet in cuneiform script. Thank heavens some ancestors close to that time included a translation matrix for it. Well, that was cuneiform into Ancient Greek. Not much help for my barely there high school diploma. Helpful ancestors again included a translation of the translation. The absolute meticulous nature of every diary made me start writing too._

 _My mother's story was a big surprise. Apparently I'm the crown prince to one of twenty lines of vampire royals. Well, damn. I'm mostly flabbergasted, but stunned could be more accurate. Some things fell into place, though. I'm sure I've met vampires before. I put one and one together, and those too beautiful people with too graceful movements that crossed my path, sending me away almost angrily before talking to some other people, were vampires. My mind is reeling with the thought of what possibly happened to that other group of people and why they sent me off._

 _Now for the official bit. I'm Garrett O'Dalley. My mother was the heir before me in the dragon line. To the best of her knowledge, one of our line currently is a vampire and part of the royal council. If that makes me closer to the throne, I don't know, but it sure makes me proud._

 _As of this writing, I'm 18 years old and, according to my mother, now responsible to keep you updated on my whereabouts and happenings in my family. I'm still living in my parents' house in New York City. If I make any serious address changes, I'll update like I was told. I should mention, however, that I'm intending to travel the country to visit relatives in both my Irish as well as my native background. No fixed address or intention to stay somewhere, other than my ancestral home here in New York._

 _Until later times,_

 _Garrett_

"Well, that'll have you start in the Big Apple. He definitively was a teenager when he wrote this. He never even dated the letter, and he mentioned living with his parents, but not the address of his ancestral home. At least he gave us his name, but we don't know his middle name. Let's go through the other letters in the pile to see what his mom reported."

I ended up snickering over the juvenile way this, I would say, nineteen sixties teenager wrote. Jasper was staring at the envelope the letter he'd opened came in.

"Guys, I think I solved the date conundrum. Because this was sent via snail mail, the stamp on the envelope to devalue the postage stamp has a date. This stamp gives us the approximate date the letter was written. That should also give us a narrow window on his birthday, because his mom would have told him sometime around his birthday. Give or take a few weeks for him to go through the trunk with journals; let's say a month. This stamp says June twenty-first, 1985."

I went through the rest of the letters with Rose until I sensed something strange. It was half a lonely feeling. Jasper gasped and snapped his head my way. I looked around, and Edward was missing. Going internal, I found my man smirking on the couch. His eyes were apologetic, though.

 _Sorry, love. Marcus got me back to my body. something's up with Aro, and he wants me there actively scouring minds. His jolt to my body snapped me back before I could say something. Please tell the others my good-byes for now. This projecting is tiring like you wouldn't believe, and even though I have room enough in my mind, most of it is used up by the projection. I just know you're able and determined enough to lead that bunch of ragtag vampires to success. Go on, do your thing, and then come back to Italy. You can guide them more when you use the future box to predict the weather and keep all gathered information in the cave. One safe, central place._

I gave him a nice head rub and went back to sorting through the information Garret's mother had provided. We found his New York address; a quick Internet search told us that the house was still owned by the O'Dalley family, but a request for a change of planning permission had been filed to change it into apartments for rental purposes. We also found a letter from January of 1967. a very happy young mother informed us of the birth of her first child, a boy named Garrett William Maria O'Dalley, born on the eleventh of January.

As soon as all that information was gathered, the front door burst open, and Kate ran in with several big bags from a theatre shop. She ran into the kitchen and spread her haul out on the counter. She had a big jar of plain stage pancake in pure white, about ten little jars of pure pigments in fair skin tones. She went through the kitchen cabinets, grabbed a big bowl, and emptied the big jar into that bowl.

"Don't just stand there gaping. The damn shop didn't have readymade skin tones that would suit a vampire. So I took the pure white clowns use and some pigments that we can mix together into a sufficiently fair color so that you two won't look like total idiots with far too brown skin. So get over here and help me blend it."

Kate was on a roll. It took the three of them half an hour to mix two jars of slightly different colors. One was marked Rose and the other, of course, Emmett. I used the time to my advantage and tried my power on the one Rose had demonstrated to us earlier. Hijacking it was easy, but that was the end of my ability to use it. This was a different kind of power. I couldn't just use it. To get it to work, I needed more; not even wishing it to work helped. It was strange, but I felt my whole body flooding with relief to have found a boundary to my power. Edward's mental pat on the back and arm rub soothed me even more. The weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. The fact that I was omnipotent as long as I had the right powers nearby had slowly settled in my mind. The weight of the responsibility to use it for the good of the vampire world had become near crushing, without me being aware of it.

Oooxxxooo

The hustle and bustle went on for another hour. Cars were rented and suitcases put inside those cars. Routes were planned and a plane ticket bought; I would return to Italy to man, as Emmett dubbed it, Operation Central. Finally, everything was ready. Jasper and Kate would remain in Chicago, and Rose and Emmett, armed with every bit of information available, would drive to New York to start the search for the elusive Garrett. The search of Edward's mom's quarters would have to wait. Her input had been invaluable, but it was apparent that most of her efforts had to do with the ancients and wouldn't be helpful to our search. Edward also wanted to be there as a whole, not just a specter, when we went through all his mother's things.

A few hours later, I pretended to sleep in my first-class seat while going over everything in my head. The most snowed under thing of this trip would have to be Jasper mating with Kate. Just before I left, he had taken me in a hug and confided through his mind that they were taking it as slow as possible. He was thrown for a loop that manipulation could trump instincts. He didn't trust himself to really feel what he felt. After all, he only discovered he could separate his power's emotional upheaval from his own feelings a short few months ago. That too made him hesitant to act right away. I was glad he was cautious, as long as he didn't give it up. He wouldn't. He was happy for the first time in eighty years.

I was shaken from my musings by Edward bounding into our living room as a puppy, and I mean literally as a doggy puppy. An adorable little puppy with unruly bronze hair. He jumped on the couch and snuggled onto my lap, showing his belly. He would always be a cuddler. He became his own sexy self again, his head still in my lap, and told me that he'd witnessed the first big crack in Aro's unflappable exterior.

* * *

 **Do you also love that almost everything is possible in Bella and Edward's mental home? I'll tell you now, the ancients will come back in part three of this story, their role here was limited because they had little influence on the inner workings of the royal court, that is the problem of the royal council or their subjects.**

 **My recommendations for this week are:**

 **Failure to Thrive by Julesnerd. Bella is sexually unfulfilled after four horrible encounters. She meets Edward Masen, and Bella has been told she's frigid. ffn 1904085**

 **No Ordinary Proposal by twilover76. Bella wants to escape her small-town life and live her dreams in New York. What happens when a man almost twice her age makes her an offer she can't refuse? ffn 8092082**

 **Please, everyone, reviews make my day.**

 **Enjoy Reading.**

 **Pien**


	15. Chapter 15 Feeding Paranoia

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight saga, I'm just playing with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Phew, people didn't like the attitude Bella and Edward showed the last chapter. Sorry, not. Two things to explain though. We're sitting on the sectional couch in their mental home with them. That means we're privy of their private thoughts. Don't tell me you didn't ever think bad things but never did anything with it. Exactly, everybody sometimes is majorly petulant in their thoughts. Secondly, they are thrown into new things head first time and time again. The pressure got to them making them react rudely, and act out childish fantasies in the safe environment of their mental home. Remember their tortured back stories, because I write psychological things as realistic as I can get them in an imagined setting.**

 **Thanks once again to Lorraine and JenRar for keeping me grounded and grammatically sound.**

 **Let's get on with it, the first steps to finding Didyme with real purpose.**

* * *

Chapter 15 Feeding Paranoia.

EPOV

I hung as still as a statue in my cell, but in my mind I had to vent the energy Marcus's tale had released. Somehow, I once again was inspired and ran around like a puppy; the possibilities of the mind were endless. When I found my happy place on Bella's lap, I presented my stomach to be scratched, but just before she complied, I knew that I needed to be myself to explain my exhilarated state. I changed back, and her hand found my started scratching it instead of my doggy belly.

"Bella, the most incredible thing happened. Marcus just told me all about it. Let me show you." I told her, subconsciously repeating Marcus's words

She made contact with my mind, and I went back to my rather harsh return from being projected.

 _"Thank you for returning, Edward. The most incredible thing happened. This time of year, our outside agents, like Eleazar, report. I just came away from the throne room and was ecstatic. It took all my control to keep my morose composure intact. Michiel, our agent in the Balkan, came in today. He reported in the usual way, silently to Aro. That numbskull wants to keep everything to himself. He doesn't know every single one of the outside agents issues a written report to me before they arrive. You can do anything in this electronic age. Years ago I had a postage box in Pisa. Now I have an e-mail address._

 _"The effect from Michiel's report to Aro was far less than expected. The e-mail had stated that his first order of business with Aro would be the fact that he had to destroy three feral werewolves. They roamed the forests in Bulgaria near the Romanian border. They were intent on infecting as many humans as possible. He couldn't talk sense into them. The look of a vampire had them cowering and agreeing to anything he asked, but he assessed their agreement to be just to get him to go away. He was lucky he found them one at the time. If they'd been all together, his existence might have been in the balance. The no-holds-barred attitude of the werewolves went further than just their one-day-a-month exploits to bite as many men as possible. They herded the changing men toward their lair. Somehow these normally solitaire beasts were forming a pack. Careful scouting brought Michiel into Romania,_ _more specifically_ _the province_ _where vampire folklore ran rampant_ _, Transylvania. In the most northern county of Transylvania, Bistrita, he found a ruin that housed the pack. He retreated, however, when he smelled vampires around the ruin. Two very specific scents. The Romanians_ _."_

I started to generate a second information stream to tell Bella all about the Romanians, but she stopped me, shaking her head. She bombarded me with the content of a box labelled Romanians that she'd stolen from Aro with his own power. That look into the workings of her part of our mind was enlightening. It came from deep inside her subconscious tracks, pieces of information flying around being stored automatically into large filing cabinets. The drawers were labelled with appropriate trigger words. Every piece of knowledge collected was available at a moment's notice.

I was certain that the Romanians' presence in Bistrita wasn't a coincidence; they, with purpose, chose the province that was described in the most iconic vampire novel in history, Bram Stoker's _Dracula_. I continued Marcus's tale on our television, his baritone as a voice-over telling the story to the images.

 _"Michiel knew he couldn't go on without risking his existence and backed off. His surveillance of the place had resulted in a werewolf count of thirty-five with a contingent of about ten vampires. He hadn't seen, just smelled, Vladimir and Stephan, the latter's scent the only one that was fresh."_

On the television, we witnessed a bored-looking Aro with the usual self-absorbed loyalties whirling around him. Agitated spikes shot from his subconscious to his conscious mind. Something was happening that wasn't normal.

 _"When Aro was finished going through his mind, he turned away, and I expected him to go off the handle about the defiance of his rule by his friends. Nothing happened. Aro turned back and told Michiel he thought that it was a rather boring report."_

The scene on screen froze on the incredulous look on Michiel's face.

" _Michiel stood there absorbing that remark and decided to show Aro through his own power again what he already did through allowing Aro to enter his mind. He grabbed Aro's face and showed him his memories. He kept back everything else and while he showed Aro, he told out loud what he was showing him."_

We had zoomed out and were now the audience of quite the light show of changing loyalties. Auras showing shock and disbelief, colored ropes flying around unattached before finding new footholds.

" _It was quite something to behold, Edward. The whole room was frozen. Everyone realized with a shock that their powerful and untouchable leader had failed to see the primary goal of Michiel's report. The whole guard, except for two, shifted its loyalty from Aro to Caius and me, half of it on me, a third on Caius, and the remaining sixth on all three of us as an entity. I tell you, I had the greatest trouble remaining impassive. The added trust almost gave me wings. I had to grab my chair and bite my cheek to see how Aro would try to talk himself out of that one. He'd already said that he found it a boring report. Now everybody who lived around him knew that his power wasn't as foolproof as he made it out to be._

 _"He chose to say that he'd been aware for a long time that the Romanians were scheming against him. The report hadn't surprised or upset him. He still found it a boring report. His voice, however, failed him in a big way; it was an octave too high and with a menacing overtone he would keep far away from surfacing if he was composed. I wish, dear Edward, your attention had been here. I would burn to know what the guard was thinking when that happened."_

Bella stopped me there. The image on the television froze at once. It had to have been pure luck that it stopped on a screen filled with a close-up of Aro covered in a bright-red aura.

"Edward, I think your mind has recorded those thoughts. We just have to find them in the ignore vault. My theory is that while you're projected, your mind just creates a quiet haven for you to be able to be fully in the moment away from your body. It took Marcus some time to get you back from Chicago, after all. Every attempt was ignored until he touched you."

I conceded that she had a point but didn't feel like digging through the cesspool that was in the ignore vault until I had Marcus at hand. Those thoughts would have to wait. I told her what Marcus caught from Aro after Michiel left.

 _"Edward, it really was exhilarating to watch Aro struggle to keep his composure. I don't think he missed that report by accident. His power must have failed him. His blank face and dismissive comment was put-on. His aura spiked red for a single moment. Do you know what could have such an effect on a power, other than your mate?"_

Here, Bella broke into the memory again, her mental persona blushing bright red.

"Shit, I think I forgot to tell you something. I think I know what happened, but we'll only know for sure when we go dig through the thoughts in the manure pile in that ignore vault and take a look at what happened in Aro's mind.

"What I forgot about is that I did a little experiment. I remembered the reminders you planted in front of your vampire instincts to treat me with care when I was still human, or mostly human. I used it with a little twist on Aro... I planted a manipulation sign, using the side ability the future-seeing box has, right on the path he always uses to get to his power. It suggested to him that his power wasn't stable anymore and would go out at the least opportune moment possible. Sorry… I was rummaging through the corners of his mind to record the last of his files when I saw the traffic sign pointing to his power, and seeing as I had already dialed it down, I just thought it couldn't harm if it didn't work, but I also couldn't afford his power to remain the same for too long. We'd already decided I had to be in America, so that's that. I just did it and as good as forgot about it. So you see, it was your mate doing that."

She rambled on and on. I kissed her to stop her slow regression to the insecure little girl; somehow she thought that I would be mad at her for using that particular ability on Aro.

"Love, shush! I'm not mad. I'm awed. Just as the possibilities in our minds are endless, it seems your power has no bounds."

The shy image of Bella jumped up from the couch and changed into an almost feral one. She towered over me, looking like a big cat who had its prey but liked to play with it.

"Don't say that!" she said in a furious voice. "I don't want to be omnipotent. I don't like to be looked at as the ultimate weapon. Goddamn it, I simply want to be the best being I can be. I want to help others, and I don't relish in destroying them, but if that is what needs to be done, I'll do it. Plus, you're wrong. My power can't do it all. I can't use Rose's power. She has something deep inside I can't wrap up. I can wrap her up and intimately see what it does, but I'm lacking her inner compass, which is what sets her power in motion."

While she sounded petulant, her eyes radiated smugness at telling me she had boundaries. I couldn't do anything but wrap her up in my arms and kiss her senseless once again. I was still awed by my indomitable mate. I also reveled in our mental closeness. Our bodies functioned in the outside world independently, but we created our own bubble inside our minds and were rock solid together. We had to keep track of the outside world. Otherwise we would both turn into statues and would live inside our mind forever.

The outside world still made sure to bring us back to it, less on my side than on Bella's. Marcus proved my theory a week later by almost skipping into the cave. Ever since Bella sat him down and told him that the ancients had confirmed our reincarnation theory, even telling us who to look for, his entire demeanor had changed from jovial but serious to outright joyous and jittery. He was adamant about speaking to Rose and Emmett every day. He wanted to hear their progress himself and began to have more and more trouble hiding his emotions while in the castle. Bella taught him a little trick she used while in high school: fill the forefront of your mind with the misery from your past. Adapting her human trick to a vampire mind, she also made him put his exhilarated feelings to the track the farthest back in his mind.

That day, however, he fled the castle because his composure was cracking in a bad way. He told Bella with great enthusiasm that Aro felt threatened by everybody but Jane and Alec. He conceded that Aro ignored him but his trust level toward him hadn't changed either. Aro still believed him to be harmless. The centuries of building his cave and perpetuating his midnight walks did the trick in consolidating his actions as harmless. Marcus couldn't keep it in any longer.

"Bella, the most incredible thing happened today. Aro was ranting in his quarters. He's become wary of his power and refuses to touch anyone, including Sulpicia, his political mate, because she was originally part of a coven that opposed Aro, a coven he destroyed every member of but her. He's afraid she's going to betray him to exact revenge for killing her sire and the rest of her coven. He can't fathom that she would never do that because she was a slave in that coven. Her loyalties never were with them. Aro freed her from slavery and made her a queen. Now, however, his paranoia just might have triggered the revenge he feared. He banished her from their quarters and assigned her a single room in the female guards' barracks. Can you believe it? He actually threw her out, with only the clothes on her back. He used Jane to escort her, and nobody would go against her, believe me. Jane has been given a free pass to use her power on anyone who even looks to go against him. The only ones who she has been forbidden to fry are the three on the council: Aro, Caius, and myself. Today he shortened her forbidden list by removing the wives. Yes, he removed Anthenodora as well."

His enthusiasm started to dull down, giving way to raging curiosity. "Edward, Bella, can we please go through the thoughts of Aro, as well as the guards, from the moment Aro decided if he didn't see anything, it meant a dull report? Please. My curiosity is killing me."

 _We should have kept the fact that your mind had recorded it all to ourselves, honey. Now we'll have to dance to his tune,_ Bella said in my mind with a laugh before taking control and opening the dreaded ignore vault.

I was glad the safe had some TARDIS qualities, because what fell out could never fit into a safe the size of a table-model fridge; I was happy it was bigger on the inside. In the corner of our safe room, the thought incinerator roared to life, answering the opening of the ignore vault. The thoughts Bella ignored were on purple-tinted paper, while mine were green. She sorted through them at high speed, separating the colors and dumping all purple ones back in the safe without looking. Then she took all green ones and concentrated our mind on ordering them in time and place. Her next act was funny as hell with magical effects; she threw all green notes in the air, and they fluttered back to the ground into neat stacks, each stack representing a date. A quick flick through the leftmost stack revealed it was the ignored thoughts of Forks High School skanks. I then took the rightmost pile and weeded through them. Those were from the last week, including a whole bundled bunch starting at the same moment. The exact moment everybody in the throne room realized Aro hadn't seen Michiel's initial report through his power.

Flipping back through a few more thoughts, I came to Aro's realization that his power didn't work.

 _'He always has his report front and center, but now I only get a few cobwebby personal things blowing around this cavernous space. My power is completely out of control. It's changing too, but not in a good way. Why can't I see what he's telling me? I have to bluff my way out of this. Nobody can know I can't see a thing. Let's see… His last two reports were commonplace. I'll bet his lifestyle remained sedate.'_

After that panicked set of thoughts, my own memory filled in how he handled the outcome of that panic attack.

 _"Well, Michiel, that was rather boring. If you had nothing to tell, why did you make the journey? You could have waited until the next reporting season."_

While Aro was talking, it looked like Demetri locked on to the fact that something strange was happening. With him being Marcus's main confidant, it wasn't surprising that he was the first beside Marcus.

 _'Look at Michiel's face! He reported all right. Marcus showed the e-mail to me. Damn, how did Bella achieve that? She's fucking powerful, that's for sure.'_

The next three pages were Aro's thoughts. The utter shock when Michiel changed the exchange around, grabbing Aro's face and forcing his thoughts into his mind. Aro's thoughts got an extra layer to them. Those were the thoughts pushed into his mind by Michiel. As we already knew that train of thought, I concentrated on what went on in Aro's personal thoughts.

'What the hell is happening? _How can he invade my mind like that? Why is he telling the whole guard what he's showing me? This is all orchestrated to bring doubt to my reign. I can't trust anyone anymore_ not _to want to bring me down. I won't falter. I'm the leader of the vampire world. Everybody has to listen to_ me _. The only ones I can still trust are my own creations.'_

A god-awful sound brought my attention to what was happening in the cave with Bella and Marcus. Bella had used her power to wire up the gigantic flatscreen to the things we'd discovered. Marcus sat relaxed in one of the oversize theatre seats. On the screen was a rendering of the throne room in the castle. I would say it looked the most like _South Park_. The thoughts I uncovered showed themselves as thought bubbles attached to the appropriate character. With the panicked thoughts of Aro, however, the sound had kicked in and transmitted a perfect copy of a squealing pig at high volume.

Marcus sat frozen until he understood what it meant. His hysterical laugh fit perfectly with the squealing pig. All his exuberant energy returned full force, and he changed his relaxed pose for one on the edge of his seat. Riveted to the screen, he saw a new thought bubble bloom into existence over Jane's head.

*What's Master doing? How can he allow that gnat to humiliate him? Come on, Master. Let me burn him. I want to save him. He holds my heart, and even if it was possible, I wouldn't burn my creator.*

Overlapping her sycophantic dribble appeared another bubble, this time in the corner where the muscle squad stood. Their captain had some profound insight to share.

*Well, if our leader is this stupid, I'd rather follow Marcus. At least when he opens his mouth, what comes out makes sense. Shame he acts more like a zombie than a vampire.*

Marcus went over his memories of that moment, and just after Felix's thoughts, the big shift in loyalty happened. At the exact same moment, Chelsea's bubble appeared and made it clear why that shift was possible.

*Look at that sad performance. I'm glad there are two more leaders next to him. I can't be bound to such a fraud. And if I can't bind myself, how can I allow my fellow guards to be bound to him? His behavior is despicable. The solution has to be to keep them bound to the Volturi in general, not to Aro specifically. Everybody from now on can choose their own leader to follow. I know I still need to bind them. Vampires need a governing institution. _That_ I believe in, not in dictators with a megalomaniacal worldview and stupid to boot.*

Chelsea's bubble was pushed out of frame by a large, red, spikey bubble radiating anger. It was connected to the boyish form of Alec. The letters in the bubble changed shapes and were electric green and blazing yellow.

*That rat, Michiel, is undermining Master. I should make sure he gets what he deserves. I wish Master would give me the sign, because I know he won't hesitate to use Jane on me if I do things without permission.*

Somehow the next set of thoughts popped the screen-filling red bubble. It exploded, and the remnants dripped down the inside of the screen.

*Wait. Wait a minute. Did he really miss this report? I'm now very glad Esme found Renata and brought her to safety. Those Masens don't waste any time. I'm glad Marcus found them. Thank God, the end of Aro is near. My brother will be revived when they find Didyme. Aro's end is near, I'm sure of it.*

At his brother's remarks, Marcus had a rueful smile on his face. Then the whole screen went blank, only some shimmering transparent letters expressing the thoughts of the next guard.

*Finally, the rat-bastard is exposed. I'll have to be extra careful from now on; he'll become even more paranoid than he already was. But he still hasn't discovered his super spy is a double agent. One who has access to his private quarters and every meeting.*

"That's Afton," Marcus stated. "He's a virtual ghost. He's always invisible and reports by e-mail or letter only."

On screen, the scene zoomed in on Marcus himself.

*Oh. My. Lord! Why didn't he see that? Michiel's report is earth-shattering. He shows only blankness. He isn't getting it. Look at that! His aura flashed red. I do believe he's panicking.

*I must keep my composure! I have to remain impassive! Damn it, Marcus, keep it together. This is the biggest influx of trust I've ever felt. It looks like Aro is starting to lose his battle of supremacy. The deep-seated loyalties are shifting in a dramatic way.

*Well, damn, there it is. Even though the guard knows me mostly as a walking corpse, without the brain-eating disorder, they are still putting their trust in me.*

In the cave, Marcus leapt off the couch and skipped around the cave singing, "Aro's going do-own, Aro's going down. My Didy will be fo-ound, and I'm a happy man."

Over and over, he repeated those lines, urging Bella to join in. She sat on her chair laughing and laughing, trying to sing with him.

Marcus's phones had found their way to the coffee table. The blue-cased personal phone started to vibrate toward the edge. He snapped out of his song-and-dance routine to grab it, dismissing the ping from the other phone with the red case with the Volturi crest on it. He opened the e-mail he'd just received. When he was about three seconds in, he plopped down on the couch, completely stunned.

Bella sat next to him, peppering him with questions. "Marcus, what's happened? Did we lose an advantage? Has Aro found out we're here?"

"No, Bella. This is a report from one of the outside agents. Actually, it's from the only female outside agent Aro recruited. He couldn't find a male in the entire Amazon region who would report on her, so he had to take her. What has me stunned beyond belief is what she's reporting this time. I can't believe my eyes. I didn't know that this legend had sprouted from truth. I assumed this gender side of the legend was constructed as the counterpart of the other side."

With an irritated huff, Bella slapped Marcus's arm. "Damn it, Marcus, stop talking in riddles. You're compounding the problem. I don't want to invade your privacy, but I will if you don't elaborate right now."

She raised an eyebrow to emphasize her point.

"My apologies, dear. I think my years of having to talk without saying anything in tense situations has become second nature. The agent reported the existence of human/vampire hybrids. I'm baffled. Until now, I was a firm believer that vampires were infertile. Edward, didn't your tests in this field prove that vampires can't reproduce?"

Through Bella, I confirmed that question but gave him a theory as well. His mentioning of gender-specific powers had helped me to develop it. After asking if Marcus had ever met an incubus and he said he had not, I explained my idea that the incubus power made for a fertile vampire. The legend said, after all, that they impregnated women.

While Bella voiced my theory, Marcus stalked to the enormous bookcase and grabbed one of the antique tomes. He put it on a reading stand and started to go through it. It took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for. Then he translated the section he had unearthed. The entire book was written in some ancient dialect he was well acquainted with.

"'The incubus power is very rare. Not much is known beside the obvious results achieved by it. First and foremost, this power only exists in male vampires—for the female equivalent, look up the succubus power. They possess the ability to seduce sleeping women into having intercourse with them. As soon as the deed has taken place, the female human will be in love with the incubus and freely come back for more. From this point, the reports become vague or hearsay from the witnesses near the woman. Most reports tell about the female falling in love with a handsome stranger, a love that feels unnatural to the witnesses. Most of the reports end in the female being found drained of all blood after this love affair had gone on for two to three weeks. The exceptions end with the disappearance of the female, never to be found. Tall tales imply that those females fell pregnant and left their community to escape scrutiny.'"

Reading ahead, Marcus's face lost his Mediterranean color as he blanched.

"Oh, those poor girls… The rest of this report is intelligent guesswork. 'The female leaves to avoid scrutiny, but more importantly, she leaves to retreat to the wild to catch small animals that are eaten raw to sustain the fetus. The second guess is the moment when the gestation is complete. The vampire child can't be born in the natural way. It has to bite or claw its way through the abdominal wall, killing its mother in the process. Whether or not this part of the process has any merit is unfounded, because it's accepted by most that vampires are infertile. It might, however, be assumed that fertility is part of the power, if the missing females aren't changed into vampires themselves as human-found mates.'"

With a big sigh, Marcus closed the book. "It's good that Zafrina, the agent, already took care of this particular incubus. His name was Joham, and he fathered four children. As it seems, the kids are not what he expected. They are strict humanitarians, because they're part human. They can survive on both human food and blood. Their senses, however, dull without blood.

"Bella you need to be on hand to shut Aro's power down. We can't rely on your experiment to work again. Did you ever work at such a big distance between your conduit and your target?"

"No, I didn't, but before she's here, we can test it."

Bella sat down on the couch, and I felt her use the link to connect her power to me. Using our mind reading, she located Aro, who was busy trying out his power on himself. Perfect. With the mind reading as a compass, she threw out her tendrils and captured Aro. The moment his thoughts indicated he wanted to use his power, she shut him down, even creating a numbness to his hands so he couldn't even feel his own skin. Retracting everything, she withdrew from the link and sat on the couch wearing a devilish grin.

"I won't be needed anymore. I shut him down completely. His power is gone, locked away in his control room. I shut it off with a vault door, and I have the only key."

"Oh, Bella, you're incredible. You're gonna like Zafrina a lot. She's an original Amazon, and her power is intriguing. It's akin to Alec's but more versatile. She can make you believe you're anywhere—a complete sensory experience. If she lets you, it'll be so much fun to spook Aro with it."

* * *

 **Big revelations in the throne room. Rose and Emmett on the trail of Garrett. Aro powerless, that'll fuel his budding paranoia.**

 **Please tell me what you thought, good or bad, I'm open for discussions. It can be done here in a review or a pm. Or at our FB group: Bubbleybear and Pienuniek's Story Nook.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Cullen Rescue Ranch by mustlovertp. What do you do when the Mob is after you? Run. After accidentally witnessing a New York Mob hit, Bella and Emmett Swan are on the run. Due to a lucky pull from a bucket, they land in Montana at the Cullens'animal rescue facility. Ffn 6698117**

 **All the Wild Horses by elusivetwilight. In her suffocating small hometown, Bella Swan meets widowed Edward Cullen. Can she pull him from the depths of his grief? Is there enough of him left to soothe her clawing loneliness? Ffn 6435667**

 **See you next week, enjoy reading.**

 **Pien**


	16. Chapter 16 On the Trail of the Heir

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all things Twilight, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **My thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear and JenRar for keeping me on track.**

 **Now that Aro is shut down for a while, he'll sulk for the coming week. Let's see what the American team is up to.**

* * *

Chapter 16 On the Trail of the Heir.

BPOV

Well, color me stunned. How in the hell did that happen? Rose and Emmett had found Garrett, thank God. It had become a conundrum what the man did after that first and only letter. As it turned out, it wasn't just that one; he'd just never sent in the rest he'd written.

They criss-crossed half of the United States while they followed his trail. After the first stop in New York, they reported that Garrett's father had died not long before. That was the reason why Garrett applied for the changed planning permission for his ancestral home. After all this time, his chaotic mind struck again, because the forwarding address given was still his ancestral home. It meant Rose once again had to use her power to guide them to the next spot. She took them to San Francisco, where his trail, once again, went cold. They did find out that he was, for a short time, part owner of an Irish bar there, a gay bar. But one of his far relatives bought him out when he got travel fever again. The man told Emmett that Garrett never left a forwarding address because he didn't know where he would be next. He climbed on his motorcycle one day, and the man, his third cousin, never heard from him again.

So, it was back to our resident dowsing rod, who pointed toward Phoenix. It was irony at its finest that it would not just be Renee's birth place but the place where she called Charlie from when she found out she was preggers. He wasn't easy to find in Phoenix, but a short mention in the rectory of the Catholic Church in the Irish district showed that he'd been there for about half a year.

Rose then led the way to Boston. She led them straight toward the University of Boston, where they found Garrett in the yearbooks. He'd completed a graduate degree in archeology in only two and a half years. They'd sent his diploma to, of all places, Jacksonville, Florida. He had found someone to love in Boston too. In the town records, they found a birth certificate for…Didyme Margareth O'Dalley. She was about two and a half years younger than I. Her forwarding address was in Jacksonville, Florida, at the house of the O'Neill family, the parents of the mother of the child, who was listed on her birth certificate as Margareth Maria O'Neill.

When they told me that, I feared Garrett would have gone up in smoke once again and abandoned his child and her mother. Thank heavens Rose's power pointed them to Jacksonville too. That could be because she was searching for the heir, but until Didyme's eighteenth birthday—the age humans had to be to take over the line—, Garrett still held that title. They arrived in the dead of night in Jacksonville and made sure they were protected from the sun, as I couldn't see any clouds for weeks when I used my future-seeing power box.

The O'Neill residence wasn't a big problem to find. Emmett played peeping Tom and saw a wedding photo of a man and a woman with a little girl, proudly holding a basket with flower petals, in their arms. It seemed that Garrett had done the honorable thing and stayed with his family after all. Next, Rose eavesdropped on the residence, while Emmett scoured the records at city hall. They needed, after all, to get the O'Dalley family's home address to get to speak to them in private.

Rose picked up Mrs. O'Neill making a phone call and extrapolated the number from the beeps. After an exhaustive Internet search, she had to draw the conclusion that the O'Dalleys had an unlisted number. The moment she brought out her crystal to dowse their address over a map of Jacksonville and the surrounding area, Emmett found her in their hotel room. He made her dowsing unnecessary because he had found all the information they needed in the records at city hall. They did some night reconnaissance on the house, counting four heartbeats inside. The fourth heartbeat appeared to belong to an enormous Irish Wolfhound, who barreled into the backyard early in the morning and started to bark at the tree where Emmett and Rose were hiding. They made a strategic retreat, deciding that some shopping might do them some good.

After Rose had found her happy place—shopping in sunny weather, according to Emmett's colorful report—they sat on a terrace pretending to drink iced tea while watering the fake potted plants beside them. Rose's sixth sense began to throw out involuntary signals when they'd been there for about two hours basking in the sun. At first she tried to deny them, but after she was on her feet three times, each time sitting down again with a huff, it was clear she needed to do as her power dictated. She called me, and she and Emmett kept up a running commentary at vampire pitch.

 _People were beginning to stare at them, always a dangerous thing for vampires in a sunny place. They donned their touristy headwear—a floppy sun hat for Rose and a Texas-style cowboy hat for Emmett—and left the terrace behind. While Rose towed Emmett along by his arm, they turned a corner and collided with a small brunette. The combined weight and speed of them would have made the girl topple over, had Emmett's reflexes not kicked in and caught her._

 _The girl looked up into their faces, scrunched up her face, and whispered almost right away, "Vampires."_

At this point, Rose took over reporting from a grumbling Emmett, because he panicked at her instant recognition of them and had no intention of reporting that. His panic showed through his rapid-fire questions at the girl.

 _"How do you know? How come you have that knowledge? Do you know the danger you're in?"_

 _The girl put a hand on his chest, confirming his non-beating heart._

 _"Stop at once. I can't answer any of those questions. It's simple. Just don't start hurting me before I explain. I'm Didyme O'Dalley, and I'm the heir to one of the royal lines. I'm protected by vampire law—at least, that's what I've been told._

 _"How I recognized you two for being what you are... First the speed with which you caught me. Do watch that around humans. Your hands are ice cold, even through those cotton gloves. The force of the collision made me feel your rock-hard physique, and as the final identifier, you've got yellow eyes, the sign of humanitarian vampires. The ones that are more civilized and chose the way of the ancients, to feed off animals._

 _"You both realize that the only thing that could throw me off is the lack of sparkle? I mean, come on. The odds, for an observant person in the know, are pretty high to see through your disguises."_

Our dastardly duo was chastised for their reliance on simple props. Those would work on a non-colliding human who lived in the happy assumption that vampires only existed in Hollywood. They, however, had collided with a human with more than a little vampire inside herself. Rose regained herself and asked Didyme if they could talk somewhere with just her father present, when Emmett's phone pinged with a text message.

Not wanting to be rude, and free from a meddling pixie, he left his phone in his pocket until they could finish up this situation.

" _Why only my father? Because to be totally honest, my mom is the one who first told me about her secret. She's an heir too."_

According to Emmett, after that statement, their jaws scraped the pavement and only vampire reflexes could catch their eyeballs from bouncing off. He then checked his text message and burst out laughing.

 _*Didyme's mom is royal too. I have everything you need through her meticulous letters to update the Chicago home.*_

 _"Okay, Didyme. Let's go talk to your parents. We're here on a mission, and it's better if we don't discuss it on the street. We didn't hear any other siblings in the house last night. Do you have any?"_

 _"Yeah, I do. My little brother has a weeklong sleepover at his best friend's. I believe they took him camping. So he won't be back till Sunday. Of all of us, only he doesn't know…yet."_

 _They took her to their car and went over to her house._

 _She skipped inside. "Mom, Dad, we have visitors of the supernatural kind. Can you please come to the living room?"_

 _Mrs. O'Dalley came bustling into the living room._

 _"Didy, what are you going on about…? Oh my…"_

Rose said that she didn't need Jasper to feel the apprehension that bloomed in Mrs O'Dalley.

 _"I, eh, I've always taken our heritage seriously, but I never thought I'd meet real-life vampires. Please, sit down. Can I get you anything? Coffee, some pop?" she babbled while her hands fiddled with the hem of her shirt._

 _"Mom, don't be ridiculous. Think… Yellow eyes and vampires. You remember what vampires drink?"_

 _At that moment, while Maggie turned bright red, Garrett came striding into the room, only to freeze beside his wife. His double take was quick, and he recovered in a split second. Emmett said that Garrett's fast uptake was only overshadowed by the lightning-fast uptake Didyme had had. He also thought both Didy's and Garrett's thought processes were a lot like mine when I was human._

 _They had an easy chat with the family, explaining everything to them, until they came to the part where they told the family that they needed to prove that Didyme was indeed the elder Didyme's reincarnation. Garrett sprang up and ran up to the attic. He spoke at normal volume to ask Emmett to come up and help him. A lot of noise and five minutes later, Emmett came down the stairs carrying a big trunk. Garrett was right on his heals with a smaller one._

 _Didyme pushed the coffee table to the side and guided Emmett to put his trunk in its place. After that was accomplished, with next to no hassle, Garrett plunked his smaller one on top of the first._

 _"Okay, this here is my history documented in my journals. The big case is my family history, and after about 2500, years they ran out of room in the trunk. Each heir got the equivalent of one journal to tell what happened during their time as heir. It starts with a scroll by Donoma, the first heir who started to chronicle our part of the tree after her sister, Didyme, was transformed into a vampire and the legacy came to her. She was so proud when she told of her sister, who had come back for their grieving brother Aro with her mate and had taken him with her._

 _"The eldest reports were written in some ancient dialect, which took me ages to decipher. That awakened my interest in archeology and all its facets. It also gave us a beautiful, original name for our daughter. You are free to study it all. I expect it will take you far less time to go through it than it did me. I've added translations to all foreign-language reports, on acid-free paper. I also updated the seal of the trunk and insulated it to keep outside influences where they should be, on the outside. Contrary to what you must think of me, I'm not some flake who traveled the country aimlessly. Every stop was to gather information and maybe more precise family trees. I became obsessed with that trunk with my family history going further back than anyone had ever gone. I vowed to keep up the legacy but always thought my reports to the keeper to be trite after the letter was done, and I never posted them after my mother stole and sent the first one. It was a blatant exposé of teenage rebellion."_

 _He opened the little chest and handed Rose a small stack of sealed envelopes._

 _"Please give those to the keeper and ask if it is possible to update their operation. Sending an e-mail would be so much easier, even an encrypted one. My assessment of snail mail is that letters will be obsolete in the near future, and I'm sure most tree's heirs will stop sending in reports if it requires them to make a package out of it._

 _"But I'm rambling. I haven't been an angel on my travels. I seduced enough women. I even have bought time from a companion on occasion, but I was always safe, and the moment I laid eyes on my Maggie, all player tendencies flew out the window. I was gone completely. Luckily for me, the spell cast on me worked on her in the same way. I kept my legacy a secret from her as I was told. Only my heir would be allowed to know. You'll understand that I was completely discombobulated when, on her tenth birthday, I started to teach my girl the secrets of her legacy, and she happily told me to shut up, that she already knew all about the vampires that were distant relatives. Then she towed me to her mother and told her with a big grin that their big secret wasn't a secret anymore, that Daddy knew too because he was also an heir."_

 _He sat back, drawn into his thoughts._

 _Without a hitch, Maggie took over the tale. "I had begun to tell Didyme her heritage when she could be trusted to keep a secret, which was surprisingly early, at seven years of age. After we found out our mutual secrets, we made a side-by-side comparison of our trees. I was astounded that his line was unbroken for all the 2500 years he had stored in that trunk. An unbroken line from firstborn to firstborn, never a lost generation, and turning back to find the next heir. Because his line was never broken, some of the ancient rules had been distorted or lost in their legacy. Rules that had been more commonplace than not in my heritage._

 _"I mean, the heir before me was my niece twice removed. I didn't even know her before she descended on my doorstep and took me to a remote meadow to divulge her secret and declare me the next heir. Her mother was an only child, as was she. She inherited an incurable disease from her father and had scoured the family tree to find me. She had to go back five generations to find the first sibling in her line. Following the firstborn line in that branch, she ended up with me just days after my eighteenth birthday. Can you understand my bewilderment? How could it be that vampires were real? I actually thought I was being pranked in a big way. At least I felt that way until she brought out the proof. An enormous family tree going back far further than any I had ever seen. Genealogy is a hobby of mine. My mother instilled a love of family in me, even if we didn't know them._

 _"I got as far as the sixteen-hundreds. Hers fit mine and added another thousand years to end in the six-hundreds. She told me that her mother had told her that it had gone back much further but that for every century added, an old one crumbled slowly away. In her family, that was accepted as fate. Until I found out that Garrett safeguarded his tree by making sure outside influences didn't touch it, I too accepted the slow deterioration. Now it's in its own chest upstairs, equally fitted to keep the tree safe. I'm happy to say we didn't lose any more of it since we conserved it before storing it in there._

 _"Oh my God. Now_ I'm _rambling. Do you want to stay for dinner, or did you have other engagements?"_

 _Didyme guffawed and sputtered through her laughter._

 _"Mom, since when do we have a herd of deer in the backyard?"_

 _"Oh… My… I did it again, didn't I? I'm so sorry. I really don't mean to offend. You both act so human, I simply forget."_

 _Maggie blustered, turning a deep red._

Emmett broke the tension with his usual blunt humor. " _Damn, Maggie. It's sad I'm a humanitarian. You blush like Bella and ramp up the taste, I mean scent, in this room quite significantly."_

 _At that moment, Rose chose to ask if she could plug in her phone, as she didn't want it to die while keeping the line open. Garrett reacted quite fierce that their conversation had to be kept a secret and that he wasn't impressed by her secretive ways to record their conversation._

I wanted to take my phone off mute, because she had Marcus and me on the other end, as well as Edward through me, but Marcus stopped me. He understood that it was time for Rose and Emmett to go into some home truths about vampires.

 _"Garrett, I simply have my coven leader listening in. It's much faster for us to assimilate all information at once than for me to reiterate this whole conversation word for word from my photographic memory afterward. I'm here on my coven leader's request, and frankly, even if you're a vampire heir, I think that we actual vampires are very well-versed in keeping the secret. Don't let my youthful exterior fool you. I'm older than you are, and so is my mate."_

 _"That still doesn't give you the right to secretly convey everything happening here, but I kind of understand the eliminating a step part. Now I'd like to know who that coven leader of yours might be."_

 _"I'm sorry, Garrett. That's need-to-know, and you don't need to know, and neither would it be enlightening for you to know her name."_

 _Garrett went to interrupt again. It sounded like he wanted to cover up his embarrassment with brash behavior. "But I'm the heir, a direct descendant of Didyme's line!"_

Rose was on a roll. It wasn't often she could bring out her bitchy side to tell people off, other than high school skanks. " _Yes? And?_ _You're a human with possible small vampire upgrades, on earth to have possible replacement royals when the current ones are destroyed. As that isn't really in order right now, I classify you as a bit of a windbag with entitlement issues_ _."_

 _Maggie_ _sighed and patted her husband on the head. "_ _Oh, Garrett_ _,_ _step of_ _f_ _your high horse. We're a little piece in a far larger whole. If your line was lost, another would take over._ _"_

 _Rose understood the need for damage control, interrupting the total destruction of Garrett's ego. "_ _I wouldn't go that far, as we are here with a purpose. We wouldn't have revealed ourselves if we didn't need your help._ _"_

 _Seamless, Emmett took over. "_ _We're here to find the reincarnation of the Didyme in your scrolls. She was destroyed. The leader of the vampire royal council was her mate, and he's searching for her with the help of the coven led by the last of his line. Our coven leader is the crown prince of our race. We're pretty sure the reincarnation can be found in your line. We've got this box that only a genetic match to Didyme can open._ _"_

Some noise came over the line, and Rose whispered at vampire pitch, just as she had done with everything that happened earlier, that Emmett had brought the box out.

 _Garrett had grabbed the box from Emmett and was studying it, murmuring the translation of the strange markings around the perimeter of the box. After he understood, he tried to get his hand to fit all the contact points on the box, achieving a bit of a Cinderella scene. He was completely unable to wrench his hand to make contact with all contact points at once. After he almost snapped a finger, Maggie ripped the box from his hands._

 _"_ _Oh, give it here. Ever thought it could be from my line? Mister high and mighty thinks he's the mate of the vampire king. What about me_ _,_ _huh_ _,_ _if you go off to feast your gay mating?_

 _"_ _Oh, what am I saying. Here you go, Didy. I'm married to that oaf who refuses to use his brainpower. I couldn't be the mate of the vampire king either._ _" She handed the box to Didyme without trying to open it._

 _Didyme took a look at the box, turning it every which way. She put it on the coffee table in front of her and slid from the couch to sit on the floor Indian-style. She lifted her right hand and slowly lowered it toward the box. At first her fingers slotted into the impression. There was a slight humming noise that started to swirl around the room, and then in a fast movement, she pressed her whole hand down. The humming came to a crescendo, ending with a loud click. An awed look on her face, Didyme lifted the lid with just the hand on the lid; it was as if the lid was glued to her hand._

Next to me, Marcus took a deep breath. It sounded as if the weight of the world just slipped off his shoulders. I was about to congratulate him when the sound of a raging bull came from the phone's speaker. It appeared that Garrett had found his windbag again and was now hitting low to regain the upper hand.

" _You've got to be kidding! What… I should silently accept that my sixteen-year-old daughter is now going to mate with a thousand-year-old pedophile?"_

 _His statement was met with complete silence, until the only person who could silence him did._

 _"_ Dad! _Show some respect, will you? You're being unreasonable and belligerent. First of all,_ my _Marcus isn't a pedophile. He's the other half of my soul. I've always been like a ship without a rudder, missing part of myself. You know that better than anyone. When I opened this box, that hole inside was filled. I really don't know what just happened, but I feel complete for the first time ever._

 _"Furthermore, if you'd studied vampire law like I did, you'd know that no vampire should be turned before their adult age, which is seventeen. I'd like to rush to Volterra right now, but I know that wouldn't be a good idea. So, will you finally get your ego in check and aid our friends in solving their problems? If you don't, you might as well leave. To me, you're a slacking heir. They only found us through their powers, not because you kept them updated._

 _"By opening this box, I started the irreversible change to become one of their race. It might take longer for me because of my age. But understand this… I'm now going to become a vampire. You might as well tell Mickey the secret, because he'll become the heir._

 _"Rose, Emmett, I have to say that I hope you guys know what happened to me when I opened that box, because I'm getting overwhelmed with the influx of strange images in my mind. It's so strange. It feels like they're my memories, but come on, I can't have memories of Ancient Rome."_

Marcus grabbed the phone from the table between us and took it from its mute setting.

"Rose, please give Didyme the phone. I think I can explain this."

Some scuffling noises came from the phone until we heard another argument begin. Garrett once again tried to force Didyme's hand.

" _Garrett, that is enough. If my mate requests to speak to me, that doesn't mean that one of my human vessels can interfere and get extra favors without having done the work. Get it through your mind that until today, I might have been your daughter, but starting with the opening of that box, I became Didyme, mate of Marcus Volturi, leader of the vampire world. You have been left behind. I'm sorry if that emasculates you or throws a spanner in your grand master plan, that, until now, has been non-existent. I might look almost sixteen, but I received about fifteen hundred years of memories not half an hour ago. So let my mate explain to me how this could have happened, and don't act like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum all the time."_

After the laughter had died down and Garrett had left the room to go sulk, Didyme told Marcus to go on.

"My dear Didyme, I'm so glad that Rose and Emmett have found you. After such a long time, I finally am complete again. We both have to thank Bella here for seeing the possibility of reincarnation; I wouldn't have searched for you otherwise. What your sister in the olden times wrote is all true. Didyme went back for her brother Aro, and I changed him into one of us at her request. He became a memory reader through touch, unlike Bella's mate, Edward, who is a thought reader. Edward has said it the clearest. He's live radio to Aro's recordings.

"Aro stole you from me by using his illegal creations: a set of thirteen-year-old fraternal twins who were on the verge of being burned as witches when he saved their lives. He never intended to wait to change them, because he perceived a very powerful gift in them. He kept them hidden and trained them as an assault team. The moment he read in his sister's mind that she needed time away from the castle and wanted to enjoy a vacation, as you call it now, he struck. His mind twisted with greed for power. He made sure I would go on a mission far away from Volterra to capture an elusive werewolf. While I was gone, he unleashed his witch twins on you, my dear. They destroyed you, but not entirely. We had and will have the same bond as Bella and Edward. The part of your soul that went with me on my mission kept us together, even if we were half the world apart. That part stayed inside my mind.

"Now, how the makers of the box knew about that and how they made it possible for our link to start growing long distance is a complete mystery to me, but the piece of your soul I carried around with me is gone, while you gained memories that can only be of your past existence. Welcome back, my dear."

" _Thank you, dear Marcus, I'm glad to be back. But this all is the most bizarre thing that ever happened in my head."_

She dissolved into the most adorable giggles. I felt that the teenager and the adult parts of her soul still hadn't merged and caused some friendly mind scuffles. Her giggles stopped without warning, and a gasp came over the line. Rose explained in a whisper that Didyme was looking into the box.

" _Damn. This looks like the box itself is some kind of device. It does more than connect souls, it seems. The bottom of the box now appears to be some kind of screen. It has a line with strange markings, and underneath it says, 'Hello'."_

Rose's step-by-step explanation continued until she told us Didyme poked the screen in the box and the box said hello, and then she poked again and a velvety voice spoke a smooth word. It wasn't recognizable. Even Marcus looked stunned.

" _Marcus, honey, do you recognize this language? My dad is still AWOL. He's the language guru here. I think, however, after all this time, you could run circles around him in any language. Does this sound in any way familiar?"_

Marcus was sad to have to tell his mate he'd never heard anything of the kind. He asked her to play it again and again, while trying to say it too. Didyme was fantastic. At the third try, she spoke the word the exact same way the box did.

" _Whoa, the screen changed! It now has a very long text, all in those strange markings. I hope this will lead us somewhere."_

I interrupted the excited girl. The quest those ancients had in mind had to wait. "I'm sorry, Didyme, but I think right now our collective brainpower should be focused on the most urgent thing we need to deal with. If you want, you can learn to speak every word in the text. Right now we need to plan Aro's downfall. Rose has a set of documents for you; each of those are transcripts from Aro's mind. Please study those first. We will start to try and find if there are any rules or ideas about how you and Marcus can meet without starting the separation pains. I'm very pleased to meet you. It is, however, almost morning here. That means it's getting late where you are. Get some rest. I'm sure we'll talk again tomorrow."

* * *

 **They found her! But something strange is going on with her father. Garrett is trying very hard to be important, it seems.  
Let me know what you think they should do with him. Please review.  
**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Firstly, my beta, the fantastic JenRar, has published a book on Amazon with the incomparable Drotuno. Look it up High Heels & Hard Drives by Jenny Rarden and Deb Rotuno.**

 **To give them the spotlight this week:**

 **Coming Home by Sarge's Girls. School teacher Bella sends a care package and letter to Army sergeant Edward, who is stationed in Afghanistan. They begin a relationship through letters, phone calls, and video chats. There's love, there's language, and there's adult situations, plus a strong independent Bella and the Edward we all know and love. ffn 8182137**

 **A Few Tables Away by Drotuno. Edward spent most of his life trying to be invisible until he got to college. All alone, 3000 miles from home, there's only one person he wishes would see him. His Library Girl, just a few tables away. ffn 11436441**

 **See you next week.**

 **Pien**


	17. Chapter 17 Another Joins the Fray

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the Twilight Saga, I just use her playground to fantasize my own world. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Oops, I nearly forgot to post, my schedule this week is comprised of my least favorite shifts and I completely forgot what days it were.**

 **Thank you Lorraine for reminding me. I'm a bit late but it's still here now. Thanks also to JenRar for weeding out my horrible punctuation, and making sure I stay understandable to everyone.**

 **It's time to mess a bit more with Aro, this time we meet another member of the guard thoroughly in Marcus's corner.**

* * *

Chapter 17 Another Joins the Fray.

EPOV

I was still hanging around, making the most of my mind reading. In spite of the fact that I was now fed at regular intervals with the bland mix Carlisle concocted, I still felt restless. After three months of hanging by my wrists, my arms felt like they'd stay up forever. I would daydream of running free through the forest, of sitting back to back with Bella on the bottom of the ocean, watching the sea creatures play around us. I had to force myself from my musings to be an adequate spy. The whole guard was gathered in the throne room, once again awaiting the arrival of one of their external agents. I tried to keep track of as many minds as possible, but most of all, I had to listen to Aro's and Marcus's.

Aro was still lamenting the loss of his power, his mind frantic, scrambling to get to the source of the gigantic, thick, locked, bank-vault door in front of his control room. He was unaware of the goings on around him until Caius grabbed his shoulder and asked why they were summoned. That was the trigger. His now familiar public mask slid into place, and the always fake smile took residence on his face. With a depreciating tone, he informed the guard that his South American agent was going to grace them with its presence.

He'd said _its_ presence because this was his only female agent. He couldn't put a male agent in the territory of the original Amazons, much to his misogynistic dismay. He sat himself on his throne, thinking that it still was a pity that he couldn't claim Marcus's throne; he was, after all, the greatest vampire ever.

His thoughts, not mine, nor any other member of the Volturi.

He spoke in his soothing but demeaning tone to the guard that they were waiting on the arrival of this agent, and of course, being a woman, she was late. A murmur went through the guard as Aro slouched in his chair and started thrumming his fingers on his armrest. My attention wasn't just in his mind and understood the murmuring and astonished stares coming from the guard.

Through Aro's eyes, the middle of the throne room was pristine, empty of any and all life forms. When I switched to Marcus's mind—a jittery place to be ever since he made contact with Didyme—a tall, slender woman in traditional Amazon garb stood smack-bang in the middle of the room. Her eyes were fierce, almost feral, a small, menacing smile on her face that was concentrated on Aro's beatific smile, while he exuded extreme amounts of boredom. Marcus then focused his stare at Aro's fingers, those fingers numb through Bella's extreme measures on his power. His uncontrolled tapping on the armrest had begun to affect the integrity of the millennia-old wood. In fact, if he went on much longer, the front curve would fall off the armrest.

Aro, meanwhile, started to feel the incredulous stares of his guard, his mind reeling in suspicion again. He never doubted his own vision though. Just as he wanted to scold his subordinates for making fun of him, a shimmering of his surroundings in his peripheral vision made him whip his head toward the side. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and slowly brought his eyes back front and center and did an immediate and lightning-fast double take. In front of him had appeared the lanky figure of his South American agent extraordinaire—my thoughts, not his.

His confidence about his vision was shot to hell at once. It was either that or somebody had a power that he didn't know about. Wasn't that the understatement of the millennium… A lot of informed vampires had powers he knew nothing about. The oblivious numbskull now started to doubt that his guard had all been honest with him. His already suspicious thoughts had pushed themselves into an almost unnatural whirl, jumping around from guard member to guard member, analyzing what he knew and what he now suspected. He came to the conclusion that the only thing possible was that his power had been slipping much longer than he noticed. Of course he would come to that conclusion. He dismissed anything that came to mind that could be his own fault. That his fear of pain could have kept him from finding out everything from a mind he probed.

Zafrina stepped forward, offering her hand to Aro. His face had difficulties keeping animated. His grin looked frozen in place when I looked through any of the guards' minds; even Jane's cesspool of a brain showed tinges of concern. They all knew something was up again. I switched back to Aro's mind and was baffled at the images I saw there. His mind was elated that his power worked even without being able to control it. I suddenly understood that this was Zafrina's doing, that this was how she thwarted his power. She'd used her power to make his mind think he was invincible and believed her innocent pictures of her mundane life. I almost laughed out loud when she started to stutter the images just as the story became interesting.

"Zafrina, please tell this part out loud. This is so important that everybody needs to know," Aro spoke through gritted teeth. He'd caught enough to know he needed every detail in that report.

I caught a riotous thought Demetri sent out to me by adding my name. He wondered if the revolution was far off. Aro certainly didn't have control of what he saw in other minds anymore. He wanted to stir the pot a little for Marcus. He composed a group text to all guards but the witch twins and Heidi—the only three guards still up to their armpits in Aro's ass. The majority of the guards were now Volturi minded without a clear idea who should lead them. The only unanimous thought about that was simple: anyone but Aro. Marcus had the biggest following of outspoken guards, followed by Caius at a street length. Demetri had been completely Marcus's from the start, and he wanted to start tipping the guards without a loyalty to anyone in Marcus's direction. His text was the first in a well thought out strategy.

 _*What? He's asking for a verbal report again? I don't understand his sudden lack of paranoid secret keeping.*_

I prayed hard that all guards had their phones on them and followed the rule that it had to be on silent when attending in the throne room. Demetri helped me to see what happened by looking at his fellow guards as they all surreptitiously tried to read their received text. I switched to look through Marcus to see the loyalties within the guard. It became apparent that the name Volturi was the binding force now. What Chelsea hadn't counted on, however, was the glowing image of Marcus that was superimposed over the name.

Zafrina told her tale. She had discovered that teen girls were being seduced by a creature from the woods and were disappearing from their villages after about a month. Because she was an Amazon, she held status, not only among vampires but also in the human world. Tribal elders had searched her out to tell her of the appalling way some of the girls had been found. The ones that were found could be filed in two categories: either they were found bruised and battered but otherwise devoid of blood, their throats ripped out, or they were ripped open from the inside out. The first Zafrina had no trouble identifying. They were the work of a vicious vampire who obviously had no scruples, because most of the tribes in the Amazon had found their missing girls also murdered in that way. That vampire also didn't think about secrecy, if so many of the girls were found.

The second group of dead girls was far less conspicuous. In total, four of them had been found, the last one about ten years earlier. That last find was the one Zafrina had been called in to witness. The girl's abdomen and uterus had been shredded. Zafrina had touched the remains, and the uterine wall had felt like vampire flesh. The shredder had to have been a vampire or—and this shocked the hell out of everyone listening, including Bella and me—a hybrid.

Between the outbreak of disbelieving thoughts, I picked up two sets of thoughts that differed from the rest. The first was from Bella, who relived her human talk with Carlisle about the embarrassing tests I'd run to find out if pregnancy would be a problem. The conclusion of that test, done on the ejaculate of four male vampires, had been a very clear and a unanimous infertile. The second set was Aro's and had me intrigued.

' _That could only be an incubus. There's only one known incubus in the world. He wouldn't let the gestation reach completion, would he? As he explained it, the pregnancy enhanced the taste of the prey. It just can't be… He wouldn't betray me like that. There must be another…'_

He went on and on. I somehow felt that the incubus he was thinking about was a personal connection. I couldn't really say why, but his thoughts exuded friendship toward him.

Inside my mind, I was distracted by gagging noises coming from Bella. She thrust several documents into my hands that she had extracted from the bigger pile on the floor inside the room she had created to store everything pilfered from Aro's mind. To say those documents were disturbing was a gross understatement. The mind of the incubus in question was a cesspool of vile thoughts. My hunch that Aro saw him as a friend came out as being the truth. Joham, the incubus, however, only manipulated Aro into thinking that. He'd been brought up on charges of being sloppy and endangering the secrecy of the vampire world.

His mind was full of rape and murder, both combined by torture. To live his existence as he pleased. It simply didn't interest him to keep the secret—far too much hassle in his eyes. He had, however, planted a totally fake identity picture in Aro's mind, admitting to being sloppy but concerned for the secrecy of our kind. He covered his foul character in a well-practiced veneer of civility and gentlemanlike behavior. His true nature was pushed back to be housed with his human memories, their origin. I had to marvel how Aro's power harvested everything, every little thing, but he only watched what he came to by accident. The bits Aro really absorbed and used in his verdicts were all highlighted in the documents. How easily he was thwarted. He'd never even considered delving deeper into the miles of files he had stored in his mind.

All this had shot through my mind in seconds, and I picked up Zafrina's tale on the third word of the sentence.

"…me ten years to track him down, through sightings or bodies found. It appeared that during the last twenty years, he lost patience with waiting for a female in heat. The number of emptied bodies rose, but none of them smelled fertile. He was escalating fast, from an incubus with the need to impregnate to a rampaging one. His disregard for secrecy made it easier to track him. When I finally found him, I decided to confront him. He was cocky, calling on his immunity given to him by Aro himself."

Aro flinched, his mind a disbelieving mess. The picture of the vampire in his mind was the exact copy of the murderous bastard in Zafrina's mind. I had to give her credit, though. She told the entire showdown without giving her power away. I watched in her mind the true account of what happened.

She found Joham and two hybrid girls in a new clearing right in the middle of the rainforest. The edge of the clearing was lined with pieces of the enormous trees that had stood proud for hundreds of years. Some of the branches had been used to create a fire, and the girls were excited to roast the monkey they'd caught trapped in one of the downed trees. Joham stood complaining at the other side of the clearing. He wasn't happy the girls still refused to hunt humans and actually enjoyed eating the monkey instead of draining it. As it appeared apparently all of the hybrids refused to hunt vampire style. They enjoyed the blood of animals but loved eating the beast more. Zafrina had observed from a safe downwind spot but was now ready to make her move. Creeping closer without making a noise, she settled behind one of the logs at the edge of the clearing, concentrated, and projected an animated image of herself about a quarter of the circle away from Joham. He jumped by the intrusion but still didn't register the vampire right behind his back.

Zafrina spoke, and none of the three supernatural beings noticed that the image only lip-synced.

"Joham, I'm here to investigate severe complaints against you. You have disrupted the humans in and around the Amazonian jungle—my jungle. I've proof you procreated four times, but you only have two of them with you. I'd like to meet the other two. Where are they?"

Joham scoffed and told her he was there with the blessings of Aro himself. She'd better watch out, because if she stood in his way, Aro would be less than pleased. After that statement, he made a move to attack the image. Before he could move, his head was off his neck and lobbed into the fire, making its body follow like an obedient dog. The two girls stood gaping at the unexpected proceedings. When the shock traveled through their bodies, a scary look appeared on their faces. Without having to talk to each other, they circled around to stand on both sides of the image.

My full concentration on Zafrina's thoughts was broken by a screech from Aro. He didn't sound at all like the magnanimous leader of the entire vampire world. "You destroyed him! He was indeed out with my blessing. He promised to clean up his act. His mind showed me he was contrite."

The thoughts exploded into the throne room. All but three of the guards were outraged Aro had allowed a beast like Joham to hoodwink him with superficial ideas, created to seem safe. Several guards remembered instances where Aro executed benign covens to gain their powerful members. I counted at least ten guards remembering their covens, immobilized by Alec, being burned around them.

Aro looked around and realized his mistake, but his paranoid mind couldn't see a way to repair the damage yet.

My mind zeroed in on the rest of Zafrina's story, the true account. Both girls were determined to make it impossible for Zafrina to escape. Their target, however, switched tactics and superimposed her image on both girls the moment they sprang. In an instant, both girls had ripped the head from her sister's body. Each had to have died convinced they beheaded their enemy.

Aro found his composure and demanded to know what happened to the other two hybrids. Zafrina was very calm when she took her hand back and started pacing in front of Aro.

"I tracked them, but it was obvious they had been sent on a mission sometime before. It took me several weeks to find them all the way on the other side of the jungle. I caught them just before they would fulfill their mission statement, the eradication of a small coven living in a cave. They were completely determined to destroy those two vampires—two of my friends, Senna and Kachiri. They wouldn't listen to reason, so I destroyed them."

Aro exploded. "You destroyed them? You should have been more persuasive and brought them here! Hybrids are rare, and we have no knowledge of them. They should have been studied!"

In Zafrina's mind on a separate track, the real story played out. I saw the group she'd found and hidden. Nahuel and Mariana lived with a vampire named Huilen, who was Nahuel's biological aunt. They didn't want anything to do with Joham and his views of global domination. In seconds, Zafrina had decided to hide them from the world. Aro's demand enraged her on a personal level, and she lost a bit of her composure.

"So, mister high-and-mighty windbag, you stand there demanding I'd let myself be destroyed in an attempt to corral two feral hybrids and travel halfway around the world for your scientific pleasure? Think again. I'm not crazy, like you seem to be!"

"What are you saying? Do you think you can challenge me, the head of the vampire world? Don't you know I'm above the law? I'll do whatever I like. You should watch your ideas very carefully. You could join the pathetic coven leader and mate in the basement. The sap has been hanging there catatonic for three months now."

The explosion of thoughts had Bella run to the control room and dial down my power to an acceptable level. The whole guard, excluding the usual suspects, was outraged, and through Marcus's amused eyes, we saw them step up and shift their loyalties toward him. The fact that Aro had placed himself above the law and tampered with the mating bond had done the job. We hadn't even gone to extremes yet, but our master plan was working like a charm.

Zafrina backed down and apologized for her temperamental reaction. She had won the fight with the last two hybrids but only just. His suggestion to bring them over hurt her. She was just one against two, after all. Her contrite attitude placated Aro, and he ended the audience quick and decisive. Afterward, he fled the room with the witch twins on his heels. I followed his mind. He was mortified he had slipped up and showed his true intentions to the whole guard. He was glad that Chelsea still controlled them, but he was convinced that it was best if he went into hiding for a while. Until the next audience would be best. He ordered the witch twins to stand guard at the entrance to his quarters for an indefinite amount of time and to shove in some humans every week starting the next day.

Marcus nudged me out of my mental wanderings with another serving of basic blood substitute, as well as a plan he wanted to discuss with Bella and Zafrina. Saying my input would be very welcome also.

Zafrina was escorted to the cave by Marcus, and she was excited, to say the least, to see his change of attitude as soon as they left the castle.

"My, my, Marcus. You've been holding out on an old friend. I was convinced that Didyme's destruction had thrown you into the suicide category, with only Chelsea preventing your walk into Mount Vesuvius. Well, it seems I've been wrong and you're a great actor. So does this mean you're the revenge type? You sure know how to serve it cold though. Why the long wait?"

"Oh, Zafrina, I've been plotting Aro's demise for almost a millennium, but I was missing one key ingredient to be able to take my rightful place again. You know I wasn't the suicide type. You wouldn't have been reporting to me otherwise. I'm glad I told you to use your power on Aro, because his is out of order. You must have seen the elation he radiated at your initial report showing completely. I'm sure, by the way, you'll love Bella, the mate of the coven leader Aro thinks he has captured and strung up helplessly."

"Wait a minute… So his threat had substance? He really tampered with a mating bond? That royal bastard!"

"I wouldn't call him royal at all, and he isn't technically a bastard. But I get your drift." Marcus chuckled and pulled the arm of the statue in the clearing.

They jumped down, and at that moment, Bella started to run and jump around our living room like a kid given permission to unwrap the Christmas presents early. She wanted to test Zafrina's sense of humor. In the cave, she walked around and gathered her things, looking calm and put together. In our living room, she was juggling blood balls and cackling away. I had to switch to Marcus to see what was happening.

Marcus was amused by the view of Bella blooding her future-seeing head with the box open. The head was glaring at her, and the thoughts flying out were insane. I was glad Bella had switched it from total ignore to only her side on ignore. My guard even came into the cell to see why I was laughing so hard. I kept my eyes closed, and he stepped out, worried that Aro had gone too far and rendered me crazy.

Zafrina stopped dead in her tracks and stared unbelieving at the picture of a humming Bella, poring a reddish liquid into a dish underneath part of a head. The head couldn't help going into a vision. After all, Bella had taken all control away by boxing it up. Well, Jasper had done that, but Bella had made it look worldwide without prejudice or personal interests. I caught a flash of the new Didyme telling someone off in the starkest terms possible. The vision was short, and Zafrina decided she wanted an explanation.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

Bella looked up and smiled a terrifying smile; she really had merged her vampire and human sides and wasn't afraid to use her vampire skills.

"Oh, this? I'm blooding my power cabinet. This is the future-seeing box."

The eyes of the head inside flashed and tried to force my Bella to say its name. Too bad that had never worked before and was futile after it was boxed up.

"That's all the powers I've collected, but I'll add to it when other powerful vampires need to be destroyed. It's good for you that I can just borrow your power without beheading you.

"It's just a great loss if we have to destroy a powerful vampire to throw away the power by burning the head. We found a way to preserve that. It just needs blooding once a month. I'm glad that Carlisle found the base liquid of the artificial blood. It's a waste to use real blood on body parts."

Zafrina stood there speechless for exactly five seconds before bursting into laughter.

"Oh dear. You must be Bella. Marcus told me about your power. That cabinet is fantastic. Now I'm sorry I didn't preserve Joham's head."

"Zafrina? What would I do with the power of an incubus? To me, that has no value. t's good it's destroyed."

Bella frowned and continued. "Oh, let's sit down and strategize. Edward just told me Aro has sequestered himself and intends to stay in his quarters until the next audience. Well, that audience will be with me. I'm fed up with being alone in the real world. Before that can happen, though, some things still need to happen. He isn't paranoid enough yet. We need something to rattle him inside his quarters.

"I have some ideas, but I think I need to explain my power and the bond I have with Edward."

Bella began to explain everything to Zafrina, including all the details about her initial hunch about reincarnation, how she changed, and how Marcus had just such a bond to Didyme as we had between us. It took her about three hours at vampire speed. Zafrina had to take a breather and run outside for a bit after the overload of information.

While Bella was busy telling our story, I forced my mind to wander around the castle. I had noticed that my directional thought capture had become better, as well as the ability to tune out the humdrum of thoughts entering my mind. It seemed that this adventure had honed my power a lot. Until Bella came into my life, I was overwhelmed when I was in a big crowd, only partially able to push everything back. Marcus had been right; we needed to keep working with our powers to get the most out of them.

The guard was restless and texting. They didn't want Aro or his trio to overhear their conversations. The fact that Aro had locked me up without knowing of a crime I committed, or a trial, had set them on edge. Most of the guards hadn't even known I had been down there for more than three months. From what I could gather, they were outraged but too bound to the Volturi to see a way out. That had to come from us.

Zafrina had reentered the cave after having to call Marcus to let her in. She hadn't paid attention when he opened the statue entrance, and she didn't know about, or have a key for, the garage one. When they were all seated again—including Carlisle, Esme, and Renata—they started brainstorming. Zafrina had decided her beloved rainforest could do without her for a while. She wanted to help.

The moment she said that, all kind of scenarios went through the minds in the cave, all minds but my Bella's.

"Zafrina, could you please explain your power to me? I need to know if it's all in your conscious mind. I've found that my mimicking power has its limits. Could we try and see if it works for me?"

They stood up, and Zafrina advised her to just try it out, because she didn't know if Bella had to use her own images or Zafrina's. So she asked Bella to get the rest to see the jungle. To everybody's surprise, nothing happened. That made it very clear that this power needed Bella's own input. A split second later, Esme gasped at being put in our Forks living room, to be precise the first night Bella had come over and the precise moment she told Alice to try and stop manipulating us all.

"Wait a minute, Bella. Is that the vampire head that sits in that box?" Zafrina gasped. "Damn, girl. You're human there. How are these pictures so clear?"

"I kept my memories because my change was gradual, not a three-day fire. Okay, so I need to use my own images. I listened in through Edward to what happened in the throne room. He lifted the true tale from your mind. Ingenious how you used your power to distract them."

She then recalled the images I lifted from Zafrina's mind and showed the rest of them what I saw through the borrowed power at her disposal. The Amazon stood by, grinning. Her mind disclosed that seeing it like this was like an out-of-body experience.

Bella sat on the edge of her seat, bouncing with joy. Her mind was going so fast, I couldn't follow. While she was still showing the images from the jungle she had lifted from my mind, she wrapped another tendril around Zafrina and tried something new. The bouncing suddenly stopped, and all projected images disappeared. Bella held her composure, but in our living room, she plopped on the couch and pouted in the most adorable way.

"Okay, well, that doesn't work. I can't project my own image. I think that part resides in your subconscious mind, Zafrina."

Bella sat herself down and called the meeting to order. I noticed she kept everyone from sitting next to her on the couch she chose. They started to throw out every—and I mean every—idea that came across any of their minds/ Bella was compiling a list of them when suddenly I sat next to her, also throwing out the ideas she heard in my mind. Her only trouble was that my image spoke with her voice.

Carlisle let out a squeak when his eyes fell on my image, alerting Esme and Renata, who gasped. Marcus and Zafrina were more blasé. They sat back, looking amused. Then the image threw out another suggestion, and they all dissolved into laughter.

Bella looked over the two-page list and grabbed her phone to call Rose to ask for her help. Just as she went to press the dial button, it came to life in her hand, spewing out the _Addams Family_ theme song.

* * *

 **Now who would be on the other side of that phone call? Please tell me your thoughts on that and this chapter through a review.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **The Nightingale Journals by kimpy. Night nurse Bella Swan blogs about her experiences via "The Nightingale Journals." When Dr. Edward Cullen is named the PICU's newest Fellow, their attraction is undeniable, but can they remain professional? Epic banter and tensions result. Ffn 5731421**

 **Late Night Encounters by kyla713. Lonely ER doc Edward Cullen goes online one night in curiosity, never expecting to find what was awaiting him. Ffn 5253229**

 **See you all next week.**

 **Pien**


	18. Chapter 18 Big Deal, So What?

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer. I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **As usual, my sincerest thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear, for keeping me grounded, and JenRar for weeding out my mistakes.**

 **Big revelations this chapter, so I won't keep you. Enjoy.**

* * *

Chapter 18 Big Deal, So What?

BPOV

My phone went off in my hand, the _Addams Famil_ y ringtone telling me it was family. I answered before it could finish the first line of the song.

"Headquarters, Bella speaking. How can I help you?"

What I got as answer was a garbled mess of Emmett. He was so excited that his speech was a mix of laughter, whooping, and talk. It was indecipherable.

"Emmett… _Emmett_ , calm down. This way, I'll never learn what you have to tell. Wasn't that why you called?"

In the background I heard Rose muttering something about control. It could have been _out of control_ , but it wasn't very clear over the giggles coming out of Didyme, I presumed.

 _"Oh …, … need … lis… … this. … … … Garrett's …nals … … tr… of … … …man he ever … Isn't … …vel…? It … …t, ohImsoex…, … … … your dad. What … you … … that!"_ Emmett garbled into the static of the bad connection. I couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

Because I couldn't get his attention, I switched tactics, I hung up on him and dialed Rose, the one I wanted to call when he interrupted.

Once again, before I could push send, my phone began to ring. Again it was the _Addams Family_ , but Jasper's name came up on the screen.

"Headquarters, Bella speaking. How can I help you, Jasper?"

" _Funny, Bella. I have to tell you something. I've bought a computer for the house and was busy making the electronic genealogical trees, using the letters from the heirs. I'll add the rest of the trees when I'm finished with that. Katie was sitting in the living room reading when she heard noises in the underground passages. We went to investigate and found a set of papers taped to the wall near the second staircase. It held information about vampire mating. I think we need to set up a video conference, because this explains a lot. What do you think?"_

All through Jasper's concise information was a constant beep that alerted me that I had a second call. I decided that I needed to hear what Emmett had found too. The video conference would work for us all to not only hear about it but see it too.

"Jasper, the video conference is a go for tonight. I need to clue Rose and Emmett in to that too. Let's say nine p.m. Italian time. I'll initiate it here. Just have all your info ready. I'll talk to you tonight. Till then…"

" _Okay, Bella. Nine p.m. Italian. Speak to you then."_

The moment I disconnected, the beep in the call transformed into the _Addams Family_ ringtone once again, but I was pleased to see Rose's photo displayed on my screen.

"Just the person I need to speak to. Hi, Rose."

To my chagrin, the beeping inside the call started up again.

"Rose, before we talk, can you threaten your oaf of a husband to stop calling me? I'm getting very close to investigating if I can channel Jane's power his way through the phone lines. If he doesn't stop, I won't listen to him tonight—if he has even calmed down enough to be understandable—when we do a video conference with Jasper. Nine p.m. Italian, by the way. Tell him I ordered him to calm down and prepare his presentation for a video conference."

I heard a resounding thwack through the phone and a very irritated Rose tell Emmett to grow up and prepare it all for a video conference. I also heard her demand for him to hand over his phone. Behind all that, I noticed a girl being incapacitated by laughter. It seemed Emmett's kiddie display had her in stitches.

 _"I'm sorry, Bella. He won't bother you anymore. He has fascinating news to tell you, though. But I believe he's now preparing his PowerPoint presentation. I just wanted to talk to you instead of him, so now I have nothing more to tell you until the presentation."_

"Well, it's good, then, that I have a request for you and Didyme. We had a big powwow here and decided that we are going to exacerbate Aro's paranoia with targeted attacks to his ego. To devastate him just before the big showdown, we need him to believe Didyme has risen from the dead. One of Marcus's friends has the exact power I need to make that happen.

"What I'm lacking, and what would really please Marcus too, are moving images of our living and breathing Didyme. When I tried to use Zafrina's power, it became apparent that I can only use images I'm acquainted with. So if I'd try to conjure Didyme up now, it would be a static picture Aro already knows, and that wouldn't freak him out. So I'd like you to make some videos of our Didyme."

" _Bella, that's fantastic. ow, is Aro really cracking already? I thought this would take the better part of a year. Of course I'll video Didyme, if she's okay with it. But as things went when she opened the box, I imagine she'd be happy to do it. Tell me what you need, give me an idea what you need to see."_

I gave her an overview before ringing off. All of us present in the cave—including Edward, of course—detailed our plan to bring down Aro, including contingencies if things didn't go as we wanted them to.

Marcus went straight back to the castle to have Demetri make the video tour I requested. I needed a good look around to be able to use it all effectively for stage one.

&&&&&&&&&&P&P&P&&&&&&&&&&

That afternoon, a smiling Demetri entered the cave bearing gifts. He made a small 3D model of the dungeons as well as an extensive video tour. By following his route set out in the model, I could build a very accurate mental image of the dungeons inside my mind. The only drawback was that he encountered Heidi locking up some humans into the storage cells, the equivalent of the Volturi pantry, as it had been for many centuries.

After both Zafrina and I had thoroughly studied the drawing of Aro's quarters Marcus had drawn from his clear, flawless vampire memory, we strategized for a short while on how to get done what I wanted with this session. We were aiming for a total freak-out on Aro's part.

I went to my room in the cave. I needed peace and quiet to pull this off, although I invited Zafrina to join me—if I had to stretch the boundaries of my power on one side, I had to keep the other side close to me. I was happy to see Edward renovating my power control room. He had added a permanent link to his power to work like a homing beacon to mine. It would make it a lot easier to use my power remotely.

Edward sat me down in the control room while I sat myself down on the comfortable bed in my room. I patted the mattress next to me, indicating to Zafrina to join me. My first action was to link the flatscreen in our living room to the real life one in my room; I wanted Zafrina to be able to see the action. The next step was searching out Aro's mind through the homing beacon link. He was seriously losing his mind over everything changing while he didn't control it. The loss of his power had him rattled. The possibilities of guard members hiding powers from him had brought him into a tailspin. His mind screamed out that it wasn't fair, that he was the most powerful vampire in the world. A world that should lay at his feet by now. Hadn't he worked his ass off to get to where he was? Discrediting covens to gain their powers, making it look like mercy.

I had studied Demetri's video tour, and it was time to start our efforts in pushing Aro over the edge. I wrapped Zafrina in my green tendril and Aro in the red. Concentrating on the images of the dungeons, I filled Aro's mind with the result. He jumped at the change of scenery. Even without access to Jasper's power, it was still clear he was scared out of his mind. I kept the image moving forward, jerking it once in a while to make it look like Aro was forced to walk through the dank corridors.

 _'What is this? What am I doing here? I was in my quarters. how did I get here? Why does it feel as if I'm being pushed through the dungeons? Nobody should dare to touch me like that! I can't even cry out for help. iIs Alec using his power on me? Don't be daft, Aro. He thinks his power can't affect me! Why does it feel like he's controlling me, then? NO, not those cells! I don't want to be hung out to dry! They can't do that to me!'_

In his mind, he was pushed into Edward's cell, but what he saw there wasn't my mate. A smaller figure dressed in a black cloak hung from the ceiling. For a moment, he thought it was Caius hanging there.

At that moment, Edward took over the direction of my power and allowed Aro to see through his eyes. He had them closed at first. I sat watching in our living room, and Zafrina was glued to the screen in my room. Edward opened his eyes, and Aro saw what he saw. The dingy floor with animal carcasses, the blood-spattered walls, and finally the gilded mirror, where Aro's face looked impassively into his own eyes.

The horror that swept through Aro was palpable. I blacked out the entire image, giving Aro the feeling he'd blacked out himself, then disconnected my power from his mind, leaving the mind-reading link where it was to follow the effects. Aro stood frozen facing a corner of his quarters, like he had been punished as a little boy. His mind was racing through the experience, and he was now starting to think that somehow his subconscious had grown a conscience.

Zafrina got his thoughts as subtitles over the static image of the corner Aro was staring at. Her glee was infectious and made me break the connection to resurface in the real world. I had to ready the computer system in the cave for our video conference anyway.

Time to be productive in another way.

&&&&&&&&&&P&P&P&&&&&&&&&&

Time passed fast, and before I knew it, it was time to link up to the States. I had hooked a second monitor to the cave's computer to be able to view documents the others might have. Jasper had mentioned they'd gotten some from the underground passages. I was very curious what the ancients deemed us worthy to find out. Both stateside parties came online a few minutes before nine. I connected them both into the conference call I'd set up. I hoped Emmett had cooled down. That thought was dashed pretty quick. The moment I came into view, before everyone on my side had even taken a seat, he was off on another tangent. I had, however, as a precaution started everything up muted, to spare me the annoyance.

On my side of the call, it was still a bit chaotic. Several loyal guardsmen had shown up, too, to discuss their concerns. I was glad to see that Demetri was one of them. Working closely with him for several days had turned him into a friend I could trust. I started out by giving Marcus the floor. I couldn't believe he was so focused on the guards in the room that he had missed Didyme sitting between Rose and the vampire bouncy ball. It had to really be something Emmett had found, given the fact that his excitement was still over the top, even after the bigger part of a day.

"Okay, everyone," Marcus began. "Thank you all for coming. Most of you have been within my circle of confidants for centuries. The rest of you are now reflecting enough loyalty to be let into one of the biggest secrets within the Volturi…

"As you all have noticed, Aro has had trouble acting normal and has blurted out nasty truths on several occasions. Most of you here are loyal to me and me alone. Even though Aro recruited you through less than honorable means, to gain access to the council his most heinous act was the destruction of his own sister, my Didyme. Until most recent, I was convinced that I would have to exist for eternity without my mate. I had, however, found slithers of truth early on that it could have been Aro who ordered her destruction.

"My new friends here are the ones responsible for a theory that brought me hope. Until then, I feigned misery inside the castle and plotted revenge outside. That theory was about reincarnation, that every creature has a soul that can be reincarnated. Our souls are merely stuck in the same form much longer. Through a long road I won't detail right now, our search for the body inhabited by my Didyme's soul has succeeded. She's here with us tonight through video chat. y soul has found its missing part again, and that will mean the end of Aro!"

He sat down, still looking away from the monitors where our American-based conspirators were visible. Reading his mind, I finally understood why he was so rude by ignoring them. He was afraid he could start the bond too soon, making it impossible for them to be apart. Didyme had listened with rapt attention and looked a bit disappointed that he wouldn't acknowledge her. I stood and decided to get the whole thing started with the information the ancients had sent. I gave Jasper and Kate the floor.

 _"Hey! That's not fair. I called first. I want to tell you what I have now! Why do they get to go first?"_ Emmett broke in, waving a set of papers around like a scarecrow.

"Because, Emmett, you're acting like a baboon, and I gave you the chance to tell me this morning. I'm fairly sure you told me already, but because you couldn't make yourself understandable, you'll have to wait your turn. I want to know what the ancients have to say. Jasper, do tell."

 _"Thank you. Well, we found these two pages with information on vampire mating in royal couples. The first bit of information relevant right now is that the gene that activates the change in the blood on the human side of the equation is blocked until the body has reached adulthood, generally around seventeen years old. This guarantees that the royal heir isn't turned too soon._

 _"The second interesting bit—oh what am I saying. It's all interesting but not relevant, per se, right now. I have confirmation for Marcus that he is free to interact with Didyme. Their old bond was established again and will prevent separation pain until the time of her change. The one restriction is that his venom can not, under any circumstance, touch her. Her body will retain it and start the change, and the separation pain, even if they're not together when her gene kicks in."_

Marcus whirled around in his chair, stood up, and ran to the monitor, drinking in the image of his reborn mate. Didyme sat on the edge of her seat, glued to the screen in front of her. hHer hands covered her mouth and her heart, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Marcus tried to wipe them off through the screen.

"Don't cry, _mia amore_. We will be together soon. We are going to use your image to bring your brother over the edge. As soon as we have made him harmless, you can have a go at him from a distance. I'm sorry if you want more, but we need to keep you safe."

Garrett burst into the picture, bristling with indignation. _"So you're the so-called vampire king, are you? Who gives you the right to decide my daughter's steps in life? She's attending college. At sixteen, she's already a junior. Who are you to change her path in life?"_ He glared at Marcus.

The guards were incensed. Some human, threatening the leader of the vampire world? Marcus held up his hand to stop them from reacting.

"Her destiny, nothing more, nothing less. You might have fathered her. That doesn't a father make, though. Furthermore, your daughter has now about fifteen hundred years of experience on you. You'd better learn to respect your elders. I've been in this existence for thirty-five hundred years. Any qualms now, mister windbag?"

I had to intervene because Garrett looked like he was going to blow, his face humiliated by being compared to a child in some sort of convoluted way. "All right, Garrett. If you can't be civil, please leave. We have no time for this racket or to indulge your tantrums.

"Now, Rose, I need your help. We need images of Didyme, stills as well as video, preferably dressed as her portrait here in the cave. We need it ASAP."

 _"Done."_

"All right, Jasper. Was that all you had to tell us?"

 _"No, but this next bit is need to know. There are too many not in the know on your side. So for now, I'd say yes."_

Marcus was on it in a flash. "Gentleman of the guard, you've seen our proof. In the next few weeks, we will implement our plan to overthrow Aro. Your part in this will be to spread the rumor that Didyme has returned. If, and only if, you hear me whistling inside the castle, you'll start telling everyone but the evil quartet—, Aro, Alec, Jane, and Heidi—the news that Didyme is back. Everything you saw here is confidential and not to be spread around. Understood?"

The guards all nodded and left the cave under the guide of Demetri.

Jasper was fiddling with his computer and pulled up a document, the second page they'd found. He'd highlighted several paragraphs to show what was the most interesting.

 _"Bella, can I ask if you know what date Edward woke from his change?"_

I had an idea but looked at Carlisle with an eyebrow raised, asking him to confirm my idea.

"I believe it was September thirteenth," I stated.

Carlisle nodded his agreement, his head full of questions why that was important enough to ask.

 _"Okay, now the second page we found tells us about vampire mating—more specific, royal matings. Reading this was eye opening, and I suspected that Edward had ended his change on your birthday, as was now proven true._

 _"The ones who decided on the rules didn't like political matings. they are of course, allowed, but both partners would lose their right to serve on the royal council. These two paragraphs show what I believe to have been Marcus mating to Didyme."_

He enlarged the two highlighted paragraphs, and I used the mouse to slide them over to the second monitor. I read them at vampire speed and sat down to let the rest read them.

 _*Double-sided extraordinary bond_

 _Only true mate bonds, human found mate. Both royals have the genetic requirements, but the mate is turned the conventional way. This change will be less painful and take a little more than a week._

 _*Double-sided extraordinary bond with extra abilities_

 _The mating is the same as a double-sided extraordinary bond, but the birth date of the human found mate is the same as the date the vampire mate woke up from his change. The effect is a mental bond. The mates will be able to hear each other over unlimited distances._

"But, Jasper, that's the same as Edward's and my mating?" I said, but it came out as a question.

 _"Yes, Bella, it is, but you two are even more exceptional. You fall into the last category. Let me show you."_

He brought up the last highlighted piece, and after moving it over, I sat down, stunned. It was unbelievable but true. The implications were devastating for my peace of mind. The screen read:

 _*Super mating extraordinaire_

 _When, in addition to the birth and change date communality, the change of the human found mate is completed—the heart stops beating—on the same date, the pair will gain the power to transport. When the pair truly mate, with mutual mating bites, they will hover._

All three of the paragraphs had one implication: I was, as was Edward, royal; to fit into the special mating—no, super mating extraordinaire, the most special of bonds possible, both of us had to be royal. I sat frozen in my seat. I checked out of the cave and went in search of Edward in our mental home. I found him encapsulated in his own mind, working hard in our control room. I remembered he'd told me he would play some more with Aro's fear for the dungeons. I plopped down on our couch, feeling very overwhelmed. Who in the hell had been the heir that took my mother and impregnated her, leaving her alone to hook up with Charlie the grump?

I didn't have long to wallow about the unwanted importance that was now put on my shoulders. Besides having an almost unbeatable power, I now had become a royal who needed to take charge over her coven and be responsible. Damn. More and more of my childhood fairy tales looked to be predictions rather than hopeful thoughts.

 _"Bella, Bellaaaa! Come on, girl. What Jasper just threw your way has nothing on my revelation! Can I finally tell you my story now?"_ Emmett bellowed through the speakers. Projected in surround sound around the cave, he succeeded in producing an echo, for goodness sake. It was very effective in jolting me out of my stunned mind. I looked at the screen, and in the upper half I saw that Garrett had pulled up a chair to be in view of us all. I didn't know what to think of the man. It began to seem as if my first impression of him from his exploits before he settled there wasn't as far off as I thought. I had to consider him dodgy.

I nodded at Emmett, and he took off.

 _"I went through all of Garret's journals. I must say the man is thorough. Every conquest is documented with a lot of details."_

Rose whacked his head. He had sounded a bit too appreciating for her to have him get away with. To everyone's enjoyment, Didyme did the same to Garrett while glaring at him.

 _"Well, it's the honest truth, Rosie. However, fast forwarding to just before he met Maggie. His last conquest before he found her was in Phoenix. He paid a young prostitute for her services. The condom broke when he withdrew. Obviously he never thought more of it. Now here's the whopper. The prostitute's name was…"_

He stopped to ramp up the anticipation, took a deep breath, and almost yelled, _"Renee Higgingbotham!"_

For the second time in far too little time, I sat back perplexed. Well, damn if my hunch that Renee sold herself for money wasn't true. Garrett was my father… I was vaguely aware of gasps all around me. When I didn't react to that, I felt a pair of very familiar arms slide around me. I wasn't sure if it was real or mental. Esme sat staring at me with big eyes. Carlisle's eyes bugged out of his head; he looked like he was shaking his head with vigor, until I saw the last text of the royal matings list still up on the second monitor. A quick look in his mind made it clear that he was putting one and one together. I leaned my head back, letting it fall on its familiar place on my husband's shoulder.

"Bella, honey, do you want me to take over?" Edward asked in a whisper.

I nodded, feeling numb and unable to muster my strong facade back at that moment.

 _"When did you get out?"_ was Emmett's less than perceptive response. He had been present in Chicago, hadn't he?

Edward chuckled and shook his head, pacing through some of the chairs left by the guards. A collective gasp went through the cave. Three-quarters of the video-chat screen dissolved in laughter. Emmett, however, sat back, his mouth a perfect O. Didyme smiled, and Garrett gasped.

Looking around, Edward continued. "Everybody up to speed? I sensed Bella needed help and projected here. One interesting fact… My body is still aware this time, though immobile. That's something to work on."

Emmett interrupted and destroyed some of his recently learned behavior. _"Damn, really? Do you two hover when you mate? Can I see? That's so cool!"_

Rose almost took his head off with the blow she aimed at the back of it. _"Moron. I thought you wouldn't do such things again. You're lucky Bella can't show humiliation anymore! You'd be a eunuch for a month if she did."_

"Enough! We all know now that both Bella and I are royal. Big deal? Only if you make it one. We already took our place beside Marcus and helped him before we knew any of this. We need to plan our next steps."

Another rude interruption came from the screen. _"Wait a minute. Ca_ _n anybody tell me why me hooking up with a whore stunned anyone?_ _"_

Edward sighed and rolled his eyes with his back to the screen. He whirled around, eyes blazing into Garrett's. "Well, all right. For anyone who doesn't know, Renee Higginbotham is Bella's mother."

 _"_ _So I fathered another daughter… Wait a minute. She's royal too? If that paragraph says anything, it is that both you and Bella are royal. Wow, I'm a royalty breeder!_ _You can call me daddy, girlie."_ He sat back, chest puffed out, radiating smugness.

Something inside me snapped. The piece of shit! I flew from my chair and got right into the webcam.

"My father! Ha! A damn accidental sperm donor, that's what you are! You should be glad you moved on right after that fuck. She would have ruined your happy little family if you'd stayed. The gold-digging whore had me sold to the highest bidder by my jailer disguised as a deadbeat father. But even he was more of a father than you ever where. You left a young hooker dealing with the aftermath of a broken condom all alone, not even thinking of getting her the morning-after pill to make sure you didn't knock her up by accident? You're disgusting. You'll never be my father. Neither are you welcome here in Italy. Marcus and I will make sure Didyme gets all the training she needs and wants from now on. Maggie, if you want to come, it's okay, but leave that piece of shit in the States!

"I've lived my life without parental figures until Esme here started to care for me, without friends until Rose became the best, and without love until my Edward came into my life. I don't need another deadbeat father to think he can tell me what to do. It never worked. Right now I'm the coleader of the Masen coven, second in line to the royal council. I think I've done okay!"

Caius stood up and started applauding, followed in rapid order by Marcus and the rest of the people left in the cave. During my speech, Garrett had shrunk back in his chair. It looked like he tried to disappear. There was a nasty scowl on his face. My doubts about his character were once more confirmed.

We wrapped up the meeting rather fast after that. Our plans were once more solidified. Before Edward went back to his suspended spot, we sequestered ourselves and tested his concentration to stay solid while projected in many different positions, all night long. It took that long just to work off all the tension and reconnect. You just have to love vampire stamina.

* * *

 **Well, what do we think about that? As some already suspected Bella is Royal, too. Please, send me all questions and remarks in a review.**

 **My recommendations for this week are two completely different Star Trek inspired fics.**

 **NOVA by cupcakeriot. The early 27th century - a young omniliguist gygpsy girl who creates visions with her li'lute, an alien bio-weapon struggling with his control, the Federation starship NOVA, and how their lives intertwine. ffn 9375632**

 **Starcrossed by tufano79. She was the leader of her people. He was the gruff, by-the-book star ship captain. An interstellar war, negotiations for a peace treaty gone wrong and a taboo relationship between two species. Captain Edward Cullen was in charge of the starship, Volvo. He, along with his crew were given a mission to deliver Empress Nirabelle of the Cygnarian people to the nearby planet of Lapus, to negotiate a treaty between their two worlds.**

 **Next week I advise you to eat before you read, because the chapter is all about food. Well, scratch that, those with weak stomachs might want to remember what food for vampires consists of.**

 **enjoy reading,**

 **Pien**


	19. Chapter 19 Food Frenzy

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Too fast does time fly, I was working on another story and almost forgot to send this chapter to my fantastic beta JenRar. She wasn't fazed at all and got it back to me in record time! Thanks to her and to my writing partner Lorraine Bubbleybear.**

 **As promissed a chapter thats either going to make you hungry or nauseated, because it's all about food, vampire food to be precise. Keep utensils ready as your stomach demands. For me it was snack worthy.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

Chapter 19 Food Frenzy.

EPOV

I was glad that Bella and I had reconnected when our plans to drive Aro mad switched into high gear. I had to monitor almost everybody in the castle, which drained my energy at an alarming rate, far faster than any physical task ever could. I told Bella that I was thirsty in the extreme. Her reaction was a secretive chuckle, but at least she told me that Marcus would come by with the cure. I sighed. More tasteless crap to drink. Well, at least it did its job in quenching the thirst, for the most part. The artificial base was now produced in Carlisle's lab, under Renata's watchful gaze.

Marcus and Caius came into the dungeon. They both had big smiles on their faces, but their minds were blocked completely. I couldn't penetrate at all. That was new. I knew of only one person who could help them do that. But that person was in the cave very busy with reviewing the tapes Rose had sent. Her privacy door was closed, but her mental self sat on the couch, immersing herself in Didyme's walking pattern.

I was lowered down again. It felt good to use my legs again. When they unhooked my arms, I brought them down with care; even a vampire can dislocate a shoulder. For the first time, I was handed a closed gallon bottle. The production had reached professional levels, it seemed. Expecting nothing, I turned the lid and was hit by the most delectable scent in the universe—the scent of my Bella's blood. My first reaction was to gulp it down. All my instincts, however, held me back. I couldn't drink Bella's blood. I couldn't go into a frenzy. I couldn't hurt my mate. I closed the bottle and handed it back to Marcus.

"I'll take the bland stuff. I can't drink that. My instincts rebel against it."

 _'Edward, honey, it's okay. You can drink that. It isn't really my blood. Remember, you can't hurt me that way anymore. Renata found a sample of my blood and analyzed it for me. I mixed that bottle up for you. I used the additive set Carlisle has developed. For the rest of eternity, you'll drink your singer_ _'s_ _blood. Please, Edward. We have reason to believe it'll give you more strength. The base is just the start. Please, sweetheart. Try it for me.'_

Bella had paused the video and had taken my face in her hands. She had the most adorable pout on her face when she pleaded her case.

I grabbed the container, wrenched the top off, pushed back my instincts at the smell, and drank myself into heaven. I had never tasted anything like it. My first gulp completely extinguished the burn in my throat, for the first time in almost a century. My tastebuds were worshipping the fluid that rolled over them, begging for more. It took all of twenty seconds to drink the full gallon.

The effect was instantaneous. My dehydrated body took the most delectable fluid and absorbed it like a sponge. My body was supercharged. I believed I had to look like Popeye, every muscle bulging out in turn. My mind had to have been very run down—it felt like I had discovered my vampire mind all over again.

"Well, gentlemen, I think that that worked. I feel like Samson, my power restored to more than the previously established maximum. It's amazing. I think I'm going to go straight in and feed Aro. Thank you so much for bringing me my sustenance. I implore you to find your own singer's blood substitute. You'll be amazed!"

With the brothers in stitches, I fastened my own ropes to my wrists and tried to get their attention.

"Gentlemen, such crass behavior after I shared an earth-shattering experience with you? It's clear you need to get mixing. That'll stop your laughter. Now, I'm ready to be hung out again, if you please."

They complied, and I tuned them out, going back to my mental home. Bella waited for me with a big smile., her inner voice sounded overjoyed that she could give me that gift at long last. She apologized that it couldn't have been the real thing.

"Oh, my beautiful Bella, you gave me a purpose in life. I will worship you for eternity. You gave me something incredible today. I'll be forever in your debt. Now, let's start our big spiel. Who's going to be the victim?"

She slapped my chest and giggled.

"Well, as we wanted to grow into the most evil victims, we start with Lauren."

I went into the control room, and Bella made sure to be very close to Zafrina without sitting in her lap. Using my mind reading, I located Aro, still as a statue in his quarters. He wasn't in the corner anymore. I had him run around the dungeons a second time, making him feel as if he could escape the labyrinth, only to have him once again end up strung up in my position. This time I ended it with him in total darkness, an appetizer to his true future.

Not too much later, Jane and Alec caught sight of a frowning Marcus pulling a struggling human to Aro's door. They grinned at each other, both full of glee that Marcus was reduced to the servant. Their orders were clear: they had to have the messenger push the human inside but make sure that just the human entered.

Aro was shaken out of his stupor when the door opened. He wanted to start his rant for entering his room, when the heartbeat of the human hit his ears. The door closed, and he went into predator mode. Just inside his doors stood a trembling Lauren. With her newly acquired manners, she curtsied but remained silent. Aro slipped into a hunting crouch, his mind in complete bloodlust. It looked like he never trained any form of restraint. It was immediate gratification when it came to feeding, or at least immediate as soon he had a human near.

Lauren took a few wobbling steps backward on her insane stilettos. The movement away from him snapped his patience, the little bit he had. He sprang, and the moment his hands closed around her shoulders and his mouth descended toward her jugular, I yanked the image away and he landed with an unceremonious thud on his face. Once again, his mind was shocked into blankness. He couldn't adapt to special circumstances.

As soon as his brain restarted, he was on his feet and cursing out Jane and Alec for allowing a disappearing human to be sent in his room or for acting like they'd let somebody into his room. Jane was quite worried for her master. He was acting strange and said even stranger things. Both she and Alec told him Marcus had delivered the food. Surveillance, however—spy cameras Aro had set up to monitor his hallway—showed them opening the door, holding someone back, and closing the door again. The images had worked like a charm: two perfect humans left in that reservoir.

The next thing I picked up was the vampire equivalent of a Tupperware party. Marcus and Caius were holed up far away from Aro's lair in one of the dungeons. A bigger room than I was in and, most significant, spotless. A nice set of couches and coffee tables were set. Nine guards had taken a seat and were staring at the glasses that stood on the table. Jumbled thoughts of lessons in acting human and punishments by human food ran through their minds. They had no idea why they'd been chosen. Marcus and Caius entered, each burdened down by a backpack and four bags of essentials. A quick dive into their minds revealed they'd chosen the guards because they were the ones next on the feeding rotation. They chose the thirstiest ones.

When Marcus entered, a sigh of relief echoed through the guards' minds. They knew he wasn't the one doling out punishments. The confusion was still present when Caius opened his backpack and took out six boxes. He then took Marcus's pack and pulled out five more boxes. Each person in the room got a box, a glass, and a gallon bottle holding a reddish-gray liquid. Next to those objects, he pulled nine notebooks and pens from Marcus's backpack, then reconsidered and took out two more of each. When everybody had a complete set, Marcus stood and addressed the room.

"Ladies and gentleman, tonight you've been chosen for a most important test. Let me say that the preliminary tests have proven this safe and shown that it does its job. This is…the beginning of a new way of life for vampires. The key to total secrecy of our kind on earth. No more mutilated bodies that can be discovered. No more unnatural decrease in animal population in an area where vampires reside. This is artificial blood…"

The complete silence of thoughts was deafening. I lost all connection to the room they were in. Caius made sure I could return when he started to chuckle inside his mind. Through his eyes I saw why. Each and every guard sat stunned with their mouth hanging open, staring at Marcus, who had a big smile on his face.

"Okay, some explanation," he began again. "A very talented vampire has become available to us in secret. I supplied him with a laboratory, and he started the process. I think he had it already worked out in his mind, because this is the result of a mere three months of trials. We are going to test it to see if it can really substitute human blood.

"Now, here's how it works. The gallon bottle holds the base liquid. It's almost tasteless but nutritious. To turn it into the best drink in the universe, each of you can mix your own addition. In the box you will find the tools to do that. Let's all take out the beaker, glass stirring rod, and all the bottles. The big one can be set aside for the moment. Now from each of these bottles, one or more drops should be put in the beaker. Make sure to take extensive notes on your mixture. If you succeed in mixing your singer's scent, you will be very happy that you did. Now, let's try."

Two of the guards didn't like this exercise at all. They scoffed at drinking from anything other than the source—the human source, to be exact. None of the guards were humanitarian at all, but these two took it too far. Another of them was meticulous, putting a drop of each liquid in the beaker and wafting the scent toward his nose with care. His whole demeanor screamed lab assistant. The rest sniffed every bottle and added one drop of the ones that left them cold and five or more from the scents they liked. One of the two reluctant guards struck gold by pure accident. He mixed his singer's scent when he haphazardly threw something of each bottle in the beaker.

The scent of it assaulted his mind, and he descended into bloodlust. Before anybody could hold him back, he threw the mix into his mouth. The additions were very concentrated and should only be consumed mixed with the base to tone it down. His reaction was like a human who drank about half a bottle of hot pepper sauce. He started fluttering around, trying to wipe his tongue clean, only succeeding in rubbing it in. He then grabbed his gallon and drank it all down in two or three gulps. His expression was a mix between euphoric and humiliated. The base did its job and dulled the burn down.

"So, Christian, tell us how you came to this mix. You must have hit your singer's scent in the first try. Congratulations. That'll make your life a whole lot easier. If you give me your mix details, I'll make sure they are recorded in your future account," Marcus spoke with a repressed laugh in his voice.

He saw, just as everybody else, that Christian hadn't recorded a thing he did. If he could have blushed, Christian would have been fire-engine red.

"You're lucky it was the first try. Now you can reverse engineer it," Caius said to Christian.

"Just weigh each bottle, and compare the weight to a full one. As we're talking drops here, I'd find the most accurate scale you can find."

Christian may have been reluctant, but he now placed all the bottles back in their box, fully committed to find that scent again. Drinking your singer for eternity was a very good bargaining tool. All of them, even Marcus and Caius, went to work, sniffing and mixing. Two hours later, all but one had found their singer's scent and had a list of additions and their quantities to form the recipe for that scent. Caius took out his tablet and used a cookbook app to save the recipes. Each recipe was named after its owner. His thoughts were teeming with ideas for a nonprofit website selling the base and ready-mixed personalized additions.

The discussion that followed had mostly questions and comments about the practical side of things. Size of containers, shelf life, and where to get it. Questions that had yet to be answered for the most part. Marietta, however, discovered that Carlisle had missed one of the additions. Not strange at all, this addition needed to be in the singer's scent of the sexual predators among us, the succubi and incubi. Marietta was very close to her singer's scent but missed the distinct odor of arousal. It was noted that they needed to think about a specialty-additions kit, kits with scents specific for their nature.

All of the guards were informed that if they wished, they could go to Caius's armory to get the base. The starter kit was theirs, and they had their own recipe to mix their singer. Once again it was emphasized that the additions were used in small amounts: ten drops to a quart. Caius was working on a mix-your-additions station. He was still trying to decide between a DIY station or a manned one. When Jasper heard what he wanted to do, he went to work at once, creating a database that could hold all pertinent information on a vampire. It could also be used as the client directory of an Internet store, as well as hold mating information.

After my boost of artificial Bella blood, I could monitor things in the castle much easier. A lot of guards were dissatisfied with how things were structured around Aro alone. The eldest guards could still remember how Marcus, Caius, and Didyme worked as a team to solve disputes in a fair and righteous way. One of the more religious guards compared them in his mind to the biblical King Solomon; he felt them equally worthy of his respect. His discontent with Aro was enormous. His mind listed him next to every dictator he could think of, and Aro came out on top, sadly. The reason why was the length of his dictatorship.

My dedicated-to-Aro track overruled every other thought in the castle all of a sudden. Because his last feeding ended in a face-plant and no quenching of the burn in his throat, his whining mind was out of control and loud. He demanded Alec find him something good to feed off. Alec sped to the human holding cells and found them empty. That brought him up short because every human in that room had been earmarked for Aro. They were pampered and fed special food to make the blood more flavorful.

As soon as he was on his way back, I asked Bella to get close to Zafrina and used her images to make him believe he brought up one of the last humans from the reserved-for-Aro room. He led a docile, almost skipping Jessica to Aro's quarters, and I included Jane in the images as soon as he came into her hearing range. His solitaire footsteps doubled in her mind, and she looked on with astonishment at how eager this human was. How she didn't seem to be scared of them at all. Aro heard their exchange and steeled himself. He wouldn't pounce again, afraid to face-plant once again.

Alec almost threw the door open to shove Jessica into the room. She thanked him for bringing her to her client and skipped into the room. Aro froze in shock, his mind going off into a tangent. He'd never seen a human who wasn't afraid of vampires. I made Jessica saunter toward him, offering every sexual act I could come up with, stating the price along with each act. It took Aro her entire walk to decide to play along, at least until he could get close to her jugular. In a bold move, he wrapped her up in his arms and whispered into her ear all the acts he'd like to do to her, starting with nibbling on her neck. He skimmed his nose along her neck and bit down using all his strength. The moment he would have made contact, I made the image disappear. His teeth snapped shut so hard his upper right canine tooth cracked in two and fell out. In his panicked state of utter bewilderment, he stepped on the pieces, grinding them to dust. He would never get that tooth back after that; vampire dentists are hard to find, after all.

Aro once again reamed Alec and Jane out that his meal was no good and they were to blame, but my mental attention was diverted to a phone call from Didyme to Marcus. Marcus's mind was very amused that the elder Didyme's human memories seemed to influence the younger Didyme's actions—or maybe we should say cravings. She grossed out everybody by serving fried dormouse in a fig sauce. She almost begged Rose and Emmett to catch her some squirrels; she had a tremendous recipe to prepare them with grapes and barley. Over the phone, she confessed to Marcus that it was the strangest thing. She had to buy her mouse at the pet store, frozen. The concept was foreign to a big part of her brain. The modern part had to guide the elder part into the modern world. She had always been able to adapt, but that stopped when she was destroyed.

Marcus went for a walk, and Bella's focus drifted from their conversation to Zafrina, who had enjoyed the conversation too. She, too, was experimenting with the additions but hadn't struck upon her singer's scent yet.

To Bella's utter disgust and dismay, none of the additions smelled appealing to her. She was a true marvel to me. Human scents didn't do anything for her—quite the opposite, even. She sniffed the mixture she'd made for me and had to suppress her gag reflex. Her memory of preparing a second gallon for my pleasure was odorless. She had held her breath while making it. It alerted me also where Marcus's walk would end. My great-great-grandfather in the extreme would come to bring another bottle of utter heaven. The delivery that time, however, was embarrassing. He had to bottle feed me like a baby. Letting me down would alert a frantic Alec that something was up—Aro's storage cell was only three doors down.

Alec had been chewed out and didn't like it. His thirteen-year-old ego was wounded that he couldn't say a thing back. Both he and Jane were convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that their powers wouldn't work on Aro.

I decided that Aro needed another needle toward fear before I sprung his last starvation image on him. I ran into the control room and started the imaging sequence in his mind, once again forcing him to go through the dungeons before ending up in my place. The moment I wanted him to realize he hung in my cell, I looked in the mirror before me and nearly lost my shit. From the mirror looked a decidedly human-looking face back: my own. I almost lost the image I was projecting into Aro's mind. The few seconds it took me to turn Aro's vision to black, I understood why I looked so human…

My eyes were green…

Sensing my utter surprise, Bella came running into our living room and came to a screeching halt when she saw the two vibrant emerald eyes enlarged a hundredfold on the big flatscreen.

"Holy shit… Wow, what's happened?"

"Uhm… I think the additions influenced my eye color. We need to stock up on red contacts if this is happening all around the castle."

Bella grabbed her phone in the cave and texted Marcus what had happened. Not five minutes later, he and Demetri skidded into the dungeon and stared at my eyes for at least three and a half minutes. Marcus's mind worked at top speed to find the cause. After two minutes of open-mouthed staring, he came to the same conclusion I had and ordered Demetri to go to the cave and assist Bella in buying as many pairs of bloodred contacts as possible. Bella already sat at the big table in the cave, working two different sites, ordering their entire stock of the pesky things. Being the smart woman she was, she also ordered pairs of golden-yellow ones. Marcus stared a bit more and just burst out laughing.

"Damn, Edward. Now I know you're a descendant of mine for sure. You've got the exact same eye color I had. I've never seen this shade of green anywhere else! Oh, I'm already looking forward for my own eyes to change," he told me when he could talk again.

It took longer than we thought, and it only worked for those guards who had found their singer's scent. But guard for guard, the scary red eyes became the much more acceptable range of natural colors. There was a difference, though. Every one of the guards had eyes that were very vibrant, almost glowing. Caius had a theory on that. He thought that through the change, our eyes were transformed to the eyes of a creature with night vision. That even when red, our eyes seemed to glow, and he posed, looking at Carlisle, that our yellow, too, seemed to glow, giving them their golden hue.

The subterfuge grew inside the castle, and the childlike enthusiasm of the guards grew when they reclaimed a piece of their individuality. Everybody had to be on their toes to keep all the changes hidden, because even though Aro, Alec, and Jane were holed up in and around Aro's quarters, Heidi, the fourth of the evil quartet, still roamed free. She was still fishing for humans, trying to fill the human holding cells. Every time she pushed a group of humans inside, Demetri and Felix stood behind the far wall, and after about five minutes, they opened the hidden door and acted like it was all part of the tour. Through a series of secret passages, the humans were led out into the clock tower at the Piazza dei Priori and pointed to the tourist shops lining said square.

Aro had become almost insane with thirst by then. It was time to send him his last ghostlike meal. I had planned this one out to the second. It had to be the epic boom we needed to make him susceptible for the next step in our plan. That bit would be all Bella's fun. I was ready when Aro found his voice somewhere in the chaos of his mind and got enough words put together to order one of his goons to go get him a real meal. It took Alec and Jane a good ten minutes to silently fight who was to go. Jane blamed Alec for the last disaster, even though she, too, had bought the charade hook, line, and sinker.

It became clear, though, that none of the Volturi, except maybe Marcus and Caius, ever trained their restraint. The mental state of all three of them—Heidi made sure she fed on her fishing trips—was deplorable. They all had a slight red haze covering every thought, inching toward full bloodlust with each passing day.

The twins from hell had their own kind of silent communication, a mix of sign language and facial expressions. At last Jane won the fight with a double bitch brow. It was fascinating to watch in their minds that they'd really had a fight, understanding each biting remark they threw at each other in complete silence.

Jane streaked out of the corridor with a triumphant but scary smile on her face. She would have used her power on her brother to win if she wasn't afraid of Aro clipping her wings. Her juvenile mind still hadn't realized after more than a millennium that he already had. I heard her skip through the dungeons, past my cell, toward the special holding cell. The only heated cell in the dungeon held no humans at all, but the moment Jane opened the door, I had her mind in a Zafrina-aided spell. I projected our ace in the hole, Renee in all her slutty cougar glory. I had a fair set of auditory memories of her cooing slimy voice and knew I could make this a good one.

Jane grabbed a hold of Renee's arm and dragged her from the holding cell. The guard outside my cell looked on amused as it seemed like Jane held thin air. To play a little with Jane's mind, I made image-Renee yank her arm loose and address Jane like most people would if she wasn't inclined to fry them for it. Renee talked down to her, placing herself on her imaginary pedestal.

"Little girl, as your esteemed guest, I expect more in the form of hospitality. Ask, and I'll follow if I care to follow. This better be an important meeting you're trying to drag me off to. Now, ask nicely. What do you want?"

Jane bristled and held back her retort, but only just. Her mind was an amusing, grumbling mess.

 _'_ _That bitch, all high and mighty. So stupid she doesn't know what will hit her when master gets a_ _hold. I should give her a taste of how things stand on the power field. She holds none at all. Look at her, dressed like a whore and acting like the queen of the world. It's too bad pain isn't tasty. It'll sour her blood, and I would get even more wrath than Alec over his girly ghost._ _'_

Having given free rein to her ire inside her mind, she once again plastered her scary smile on her face and asked with her nicest tone if Renee would follow her to her Master. In her addled mind, she didn't realize that to free herself, I had to give Renee vampire strength.

The guard outside used all his vampire abilities and remained composed on the outside. He looked at the wall over Jane's head to keep his composure and hide his baby-blue eyes. The moment he couldn't hear Jane's footsteps anymore, he collapsed, laughing.

I couldn't tell what he thought, because I needed all my concentration to pull off the obnoxious attitude I knew Renee would show. I had her duck into side passages toward shiny trinkets I saw through Jane's eyes. How strange was that experience. I saw two images—the real one and the one I created; Zafrina's power was awe-inspiring.

As soon as Jane got into earshot of Alec—and three seconds later, Aro's—I doubled the footsteps in their minds. Jane was happy Renee was following without stepping away anymore, at last showing a bit of awe at her opulent surroundings. In reality I couldn't be bothered to make her trek through the castle take any more time than necessary. I had the real target to play with lined up. The exchange outside the door was old hat by now, and once again the door was flung open. Aro sat in a comfortable chair that faced halfway to the door. From there the scenario changed. I made the image of Renee spot him and start smiling. She then sauntered into the room straight for him. Hips were swaying, lopsided breasts were pushed out, and eyes were put from bitch to bedroom mode. Renee's hands went to the top of her corset, and she slowly lowered the zipper. The fact that it opened easily and didn't burst right to half way was because the image did what I wanted. I was sure that had she done that in reality, it would have exploded from her body; it was that small.

Aro's eyes bugged out of his head. This was the second human who didn't show fear. Had he lost his vampire vibe? Had he become that pathetic? His mind in a self-depreciating spiral, he was frozen in place until Renee dropped her corset on the ground and he spotted her bizarre chest area. Her silicone implants sat too high on her chest, the left somewhat higher than the right, but in a twist of fate, her actual breasts were sagging and hanging down from the silicone anchors. Aro pressed himself in the chair and ordered her to stay where she was. Renee stopped, disappointed. Her shoulders slumped, making her breasts swing under their moorings. Aro shuddered and took a deep breath. At that exact moment, I infused his mind with the scent of his singer, dug out of the recesses of his memories. His instantaneous reaction was his downfall. His already hazed mind went into complete bloodlust, and he pounced.

Bella joined me in the control room and tapped into my tendrils to Aro and Zafrina. The image she projected was the first stage of our next step. Right in Aro's line of vision, the Didyme from Marcus's painting stood still as a stone, observing her brother. When he once again face-planted because his meal disappeared, she shook her head and disappeared in increments, just to reappear, glaring at him with the face of present Didyme. Aro was frozen in place. He couldn't believe his eyes. His mind was inundated with fear. Was his sister back to exact revenge?

* * *

 **All mouths wiped? Let me know what your stomach thought of this one. Please review.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Alaska by Anton M. For two years, Bella's had a cotoon candy romance going on with her taciturn best friend. In her head. So after catching bits and pieces of Edward's unusual upbringing, Bella pays a visit to Alaska. ffn 10600866**

 **Beautiful Savage by readingmama. After getting lost in the Woods on a camping trip, Bella finds a man who is living a differnet lofe. Can two such different worlds mesh when communication is nearly impossible? ffn 6867084**

 **That was it for this week, see you the next one.**

 **Pien**


	20. Chapter 20 The Calm before the Storm

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight are the property of Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **As usual, my thanks go out to Lorraine Bubbleybear for alway being there to work out plot points and to keep my imagination going, and JenRar for curtailing my run on sentences and showing where I'm writing things while asuming the readers know much more than they do.**

 **Some more messing with Aro this chapter, he's almost ready to be cooked. Marinating takes time if done right, after all.**

* * *

Chapter 20 Calm before the storm

BPOV

Edward had taken about two weeks to get Aro mad with thirst. His instincts had been ramped up three times with the idea of food, exacerbating the burn in his throat and the churn in his stomach. He had become cranky and irrational. That last fact was what I needed to put my part of his preparations into action.

I hadn't been idle those two weeks. Edward had been too concentrated on the castle to notice the rest of us making travel plans to reunite the coven, as well as the Volturi one. As it stood, my second deadbeat father had put up one last fight.

" _No, I won't allow my daughter to go to Italy alone. I insist on accompanying her. You can't overrule my parental rights!"_ he'd shouted over the video link, his face red and his eyes menacing.

I had laughed in his face. He'd actually thought that his threat held any merit. It had pained me to have to do that to Maggie, who had been a stellar mom and spouse. It had to be done, though. He'd had to be exposed for the lying asshole he was.

"So you think you can stop her from going after her destiny? Let me tell you, Rose is going to give Maggie a file now. It took Emmett and Rose just three days to get that together. They followed you."

As those words had left my mouth, Garrett had paled. He'd known what his extracurricular exploits had been. It seemed that Garrett hadn't left his player ways behind. Maggie had sat riffling through the pictures documenting four different extramarital couplings in just three days. It also held proof that he'd been laid off work six months earlier. He had kept up the charade of going to work to enjoy women left and right. Maggie's eyes had bugged out of her head. Then a smile had crept up her face when she saw what was in the back of the folder. Jasper had worked fast and used his forging expertise to draft and file divorce papers. He'd even included a judge's ruling on sole custody of the kids for Maggie. The divorce had her keeping the house and half of his fortune. The hidden parts of that fortune were spelled out in all its gory detail, because he'd made it look like he'd inherited just part of his parents' estate. She'd grabbed the papers and smacked Garrett in the face with them, dropping them into his lap. She'd then walked out of the room with the file that held the copies and the proof of his philandering ways.

A very agitated Garrett had run out of the room, and we'd finalized our travel plans in just five minutes. Rose and Emmett would fly out with Didyme to Chicago, where they would have a six-hour layover and be joined by Jasper and Kate. If I had eyed them right, they were now fully mated. Even though they couldn't stop touching, they didn't want to miss the fireworks in Volterra. The family jet was still parked in Chicago, and Rose and Jasper would fly them to Italy.

During the time they were traveling, I started priming Aro., The first introduction tagged on Edward's last. Mad with thirst, Aro's mind was in overdrive. He knew he couldn't call for more meals because then the guard would start to think he was gorging, even if he hadn't fed in two weeks. Riffling through his feeding memories showed that the longest he had done without before was only four days. We made sure to ramp up his bloodlust by making him think he would get to feed three times. It was almost too easy to make him paranoid. He couldn't believe his eyes, ears, or nose, for they had betrayed him three times so far. The strangest thing, though, was that he was convinced he saw his sister stalk his quarters. It scared him stiff.

My second foray into the world of Aro's fears was still without an added emotional push. For that I needed Jasper, of course. Zafrina sat in the comfortable hanging chair in Edward's and my room. I sat cross legged on the bed and went into my control room. Locating Aro had become too easy. His mind was radiating bloodlust, which made him the loudest mind around. Every wisp of a thought was amplified a thousand fold. A quick sweep through the humdrum of the entire guards' thoughts showed an unprecedented level of contentment. When I had established the tendrils around Aro and the twins, whose thoughts came second in the volume department by just a smidgen, I texted Marcus to start the whisper campaign. Seconds later, I heard him whistling in a corridor in the castle through Aro's mind. Aro was agitated at the song Marcus had chosen—the opening sentence of "New York, New York" over and over again. It made him incredibly curious what news had to be shared, as it was making moody Marcus whistle. It wasn't long until Edward told me the whispers had started.

I located Aro through his own eyes. He was conveniently staring into a mirror. I put Didyme behind him. He jumped when her image appeared to stand right behind him in the mirror. He whirled around and saw nothing. I had trouble holding my laughter in, and a few hysterical giggles slipped out. The moment he was facing the mirror again, he once more saw his sister standing there glaring behind him. He wanted to tap the mirror, but his numb hands slammed through the glass. The door swung open, and Alec and Jane stormed in. Her agitated state made Jane lose control over her power, blasting first Didyme's image, who I had standing over her brother's crumpled form. The loss of control resulted in Aro being blasted with the full force of her power. He screamed it out, his limbs jerking in all directions. Jane pulled her power back, and both she and Alec retreated as fast as they could, their minds in a jumbled mess; what had happened in that room didn't add up to them, and their mindset shifted from unwavering loyalty to Aro to careful suspicion.

The violent shock to his system happened when Aro had his eyes fixed on the image of Didyme, and with pure luck I had her morph from elder Didyme to our new one in that exact moment. The shock anchored the new image in his mind much more permanently than I ever could have done without the painful experience. Just before I made her fade out, I had her mouth to him that he was a failure, a fuck-up of immense proportions. His jerks had stopped, and he had returned to his frozen state.

I was ripped from my control room by a loud beeping sound. When Zafrina and I went to investigate, it became clear that it came from a large truck backing up into the cave's garage. Marcus stood with a group of construction vampires inspecting the content of the truck. He was engrossed in the parts list and trying to identify the parts on the truck. When he looked up and saw us standing there, he grinned and explained that Didyme would be arriving soon and her ancient cravings had made it clear he needed human conveniences in their quarters here at the cave. He also entrusted us with the information that he couldn't stand the smell of human food. His big plan was to build an airtight section in his quarters, which would hold the kitchen and bathroom. The only air coming into that room would come from outside, and that's where the air would be vented to again, scrubbed clean. The only difference between that room and a space station was the fact that he was practical enough to source the air from outside and not from giant oxygen tanks. Until Didyme's change, that would be their quarters, but he intended to keep them after; it would make good guest quarters for non-vampiric visitors.

The rumors in the castle were getting louder and louder. Everybody whisper-shouted their own theories, fueled by the conversations that some of the guards overheard from Alec and Jane: the teenagers had seen Didyme and were spooked to see her, their first victim, risen from the dead. They were shaken to the core. Then they heard the gossip around the castle, and they became afraid. Their careful suspicion morphed into bewildered disgust. Disgust at being manipulated.

Edward called me to listen in when they had the crucial silent conversation; thank God that we could listen to their thoughts. That saved us the arduous task of trying to decipher them. As soon as they came to their conclusion, we knew that they needed to be destroyed. The little imps had convinced themselves they could rule instead of Aro.

The construction vampires made short work of installing the space bubble in Marcus's quarters. It took them a little less than two days. To make sure it was airtight, they created an overpressure in the cabin and listened for leaks. As with most things vampire, it was perfect. The moment they installed the last fixture in the bathroom, I got the text from Jasper that they had landed at Pisa's private airport.

The reunion of our long-lost lovers was very touching. Didyme was escorted to the cave by Kate and Rose. She was dressed in the reconstructed robes the elder Didyme wore in the painting. Marcus stood, nervous as hell, frozen before the closed curtain over the life-size portrait of Didyme. Kate left them at the door. and came to sit next to me. She elbowed me with a big grin, rambling inside her mind about how she liked Didyme a lot, that she reminded her of me. I was surprised how similar we were. Edward sat in front of the big screen in our living room, eagerly awaiting the Big Bang. Teenage vampire at full force present? Check!

Didyme walked to Marcus with a shy smile on her face. Her steps looked to be involuntary, as if her body was propelled to Marcus by an outside force. She had just taken two small steps when Marcus's face bloomed into the biggest smile I'd ever seen there. He called my name in his mind and then proceeded to show me the connection that was forming between himself and Didyme.

 _'It's official. I'm whole again. I haven't been this happy in fifteen-hundred years.'_

He, too, started to walk as if he was pulled. The two met in the middle of the cave, just next to the big cloister table and the bookcases.

Didyme's thoughts were hard to follow. They switched at vampire speed from a feeling of belonging for the first time to a sense of coming home at last. I understood that until these two parts of her were integrated, this duality would be there. When Marcus took her hand and pressed a closed-mouth kiss on her knuckles, both parts were overcome by the pull and took him in a hug, snuggling her face into his chest. Her thoughts filled with the electric current that ran through them; the feeling was exhilarating and scary at the same time. Her thoughts tried hard to get to a logical explanation for the exceptional sense of safety that washed over her.

Marcus kept showing me how the mating bond was reinstated between them, a pearlescent cord with the whole color spectrum woven within. It was still thin and see-through, but even if it looked fragile, it radiated strength and tenacity. He then showed me my own bond with Edward, and the only differences had to do with ours being established and at that moment working overdrive to keep us connected.

Didyme's thoughts came through with a lot of static, but they were so loud that the ancient-radio-like crackling became background noise. Kate and I left them to reconnect, their innocent display too intimate to watch.

We joined Jasper in their room. My brother radiated happiness like never before.

"Congratulations, you two. Let me say that being truly mated suits you. I'd like to try and find out how I can use your powers to bring Aro to the brink. The arrogant prick still annoys Edward with his lustful thoughts about me. He wants me for the guard, but the one thing that arouses Aro these days is gaining power, however small the gain is in his mind. We all know that my power is virtually limitless, and combined with the bond with Edward, the boundaries become even less apparent. In the past few weeks, we've learned to use our mind reading as a homing beacon for the tendrils. We don't need to see our opponent anymore for it to be effective."

Zafrina knocked and entered, greeting Kate and Jasper, adding her own congratulations on their mating.

"All right, back to business. We need to establish which emotions I need to latch on to in Aro to inflate or deflate the influence on his state of mind. You're the strategist and resident empath. Enlighten me."

"Damn, girl, talk about asserting yourself. Phew! I almost saluted you… If I analyze paranoia, it's based in low self-esteem overpowered by sick ambition, and then the power used to assert the sick ambition is waning. The person with the illusions of grandeur would start to fear that everybody around him is trying to get him. This is all based on Aro's paranoia and all dictators in history who weren't murdered before it got that far. There are other forms, but to keep this on task, let's just use this one.

"To get under Aro's skin, he needs a little boost of confidence to start with. Then when he becomes cocky again, throw in the image laced with a steadily increasing dose of fear of being trapped. Maybe add a bomb of fear for Didyme at the beginning, for a short time only. Oh, you could make it a real bomb by using Kate to make it permanent. Then make the image talk without sound, looking irate and screaming at him—he just can't make out the words. End the whole thing with the dungeon image Edward used on him until you plunge him into total darkness. I think that'll do it."

His whole scenario was implemented and worked like a charm. The wielding of three or four powers at the same time drained me, however. I had found a few of the additions that weren't abhorrent to me and mixed those with a quart of the base. It did the trick without them in it, but the chalky aftertaste was somewhat lifted with the additions. As I was sure that more vampires like me would come into existence, I urged Carlisle to develop a set of animal additions and offered myself up to be his guinea pig. Marcus, however, vetoed that side project to be made the prime objective. He wanted to have everything ready to roll out the alternate food source for the mislead masses; the automation of the human additions production wasn't quite where it should be to hand it all over to Renata, our plant manager.

After my snack, Edward and I nestled on our couch and turned the flat screen to the Aro channel.

He was pacing while wringing his hands, which was against his vampire nature. His mind was working overtime as well as he tried to figure out who his biggest enemy could be, why his sister had decided to start haunting him now, how his power could have forsaken him in his time of adversity, and what it meant that he still couldn't feel a thing up to his elbows.

Sensing Marcus near, I used his power to see Aro's loyalties. As expected, he didn't have any left, save those reserved for himself. The loyalties of a paranoid man were weird and twisted in on themselves. All of them were bright red. It seemed that he didn't even trust his own judgment anymore. He had received a report on the fact that the Cullen jet was parked in plain sight on the tarmac at Pisa's private airport. He didn't know what to think of that at all. He expected me to walk in alone and undefended. He really thought our coven to be inferior. His mind showed that the four months that had passed should mean I was in pain. In his mind, that would make me reckless. He was convinced I would be alone.

Edward came up with a great idea to rile him up one last time before the last assault using Didyme's ghost image. I sat down and made Jasper heighten my anger. I wrote a letter to be delivered exactly a week before I would walk into the castle.

 _To the Royal Council_

 _Volturi Castle_

 _Volterra_

 _Italy_

 _Gentlemen,_

 _Recently I was visited by an acquaintance who had visited you not to_ _o_ _long before. This_ _acquaintance_ _told me that you told the entire guard that you captured the pathetic_ _leader_ _of an even more pathetic coven._ _Fr_ _om the fact that our acquaintance knew I was searching for Edward,_ _it was_ _deduced to be him._

 _I will be arriving at Volterra castle within the next week. I want Edward released immediately upon my arrival! My respect for your laws has dwindled to almost nothing. If you yourselves dare to trample those laws, how can I in good conscience follow them? You instated these laws but don't think them important enough to uphold. What does that say about your morals? In human society, nobody is above the law. Some just act that way. How does this bode for vampire society, if their leaders place themselves above the law to pressure their subjects into complying with their megalomaniacal schemes?_

 _If you go to these lengths for a newborn with a barely there shield, what will you do if you find a coven with one particularly powerful vampire? Assemble the guard and find that person? Slaughter the coven to gain the power of said vampire?_ _How many of your guards have come to you that way? Do you think those guards will be loyal if they aren't bonded to the guard anymore? After all, their loyalty is only superficial because it's forced. Yes, I know about Chelsea. You better check her loyalty. It would be a big mistake if the leaders of the vampire world lost their guard because she's on my side, wouldn't it?_

 _I have shown you my disdain and now proclaim that the Masen coven will no longer be subservient to this leadership. I will come to collect my mate and co-coven leader as soon as I can reach the castle. I still have some things to do before I do that. Until then._

 _Without regards,_

 _Isabella Masen_

That letter was copied with a subscript from Marcus explaining how Aro took over when Marcus's mate was killed. His initial depression gave him the chance. He expressed his extreme sorrow that his guard had been turned into murderers by the biggest thug of all time. He told everyone that he had undeniable proof that Aro had ordered the hit on his mate, Aro's biological sister, who had taken him in when he was lost after her disappearance. The original letter would go to Aro, without Marcus's bit. We knew he would want to keep the content of my letter a secret. But the copies with the extra note added would be distributed by those guards who had known Didyme and what kind of leadership council was in place before Aro took over.

While Marcus was setting up his messengers, I once again gathered my power sources around me. Aided by Edward, I snared Aro again in my tendrils, dousing him with confidence to snap him out of the depressed state he had reverted to in the two days we had left him alone. My plan was to let him simmer in the comfort of confidence just long enough to dull his fears.

After about fifteen minutes, I noticed that his thirst flared, making him march toward the door. I stopped him in his tracks when he heard a whispered conversation. Alec and Jane were discussing in a furious whisper about the best time to take over power. Of course, what Aro heard was an image of one of their sign-language glare contests derived from their thoughts. Their internal hisses and growls were identical to their exterior voices. It was easily made into an offensive weapon. Aro's mind went, once again, into a paranoid tailspin. What he "overheard" wasn't the whole truth. Jane and Alec had decided to bide their time, opposite to what I had made of it; they would overthrow Aro as soon as possible.

Of course, the witch twins had no idea that none of their plots would come to fruition. If Aro didn't take steps to remove them, they would both fall victim to Alec's own power. They had served their purpose, and we would thank them for their powers added to my arsenal.

I turned my full concentration back on Aro, who had flown into a flurry of contingency plans, all of which were rejected as impossible because it looked like he had only one ally left. I fed his doubts, and when he started to despair, I threw him his next images.

Didyme walked into the room as if she was still human. When he looked upon her face, the only thing he saw was compassion. His anger flared when she laid a hand on his numb forearm. He didn't want to be patronized. He'd proved to be the better vampire by conquering each and every coven he came across. He jerked his arm away from her, but her vampire speed guaranteed the prolonged imaginary contact. His mind registered her swift movement, and because he thought she was human, it bewildered him. Her heartbeat sounded clear through the room, to confuse him even more. He never knew about a slow change like mine. I'd used my experience to enhance Didyme's image to the state I was just before my heart stopped.

Our Didyme had given a little speech that I could use to enhance the experience.

"Aro, what have you done, brother of mine? I saved your life, but for what? For you to destroy mine! I pity your narrow mind. I pity your misguided ideas, and I pity your existence. So lonely, and now you can't even trust your own mind. Your own mind is driving you to desperate measures. You've become a pathetic, has-been dictator. It might have taken you a lot longer, but now you're no better than Stalin, drowning in your own paranoia. Choose to change, choose to become good and follow the original rules set for our race by the creators. Only then I see a future for you on this plane of existence.

"If you aren't careful with your inane decisions, nobody will believe in you anymore. You'll become a name in the history books of how you shouldn't do it. You'll become the laughingstock of the vampire world.

"I'll stand next to my Marcus and show people that it's possible to rise from the dead and that more is accomplished through love than through fear."

Aro's mind became belligerent. He cursed her out in several languages and told her that a specter wasn't as alive as she thought. His cocky side started to think that he should call an audience and call Didyme out. His guard wouldn't stand for a mate that had no solid form. Even though he knew that his guards were doubting him, he was still convinced he would have their unwavering loyalty, thanks to Chelsea. He didn't know that most of his guards had transitioned to the artificial blood, changing their eyes back to their human color. He trusted no one. No one could be put on the safe list. Watching his back had become second nature, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was his sister, who came back to haunt him.

I was satisfied this visit had made him mad enough at his wimpy self that he would come prepared to do battle. He was now in planning mode. It was quite pitiful to see him assess his knowledge of each guard and discard them as a possible ally if he had to clean house with the most urgency. He had to act before the spectral Didyme made friends. Little did he know she already had a following. The plan he settled on, just before I replaced the images in his mind, was sly and didn't rely on any of the guards. He bet his entire scheme on human Didyme walking into a ravenous crowd of vampires. He put everything on his guards' instincts.

With great pleasure, I yanked him, once again, into the forced walk through the dungeon's corridors, and after he glimpsed himself being strung up like last week's catch, made him descend into total darkness.

-–—:;)(;:—–-

The only loose cannon still roaming the castle and playing with tourists was Heidi. Her mind was troubled though. She'd witnessed some of Aro's erratic behavior and knew that Marcus would tear him a new one once he knew the extent of Aro's betrayal. She didn't know about everything we'd already uncovered or the fact that Marcus had been planning for over a thousand years. She went only on the rise from depression he had shown inside the castle. Her loyalty wasn't bound by Chelsea any longer, which made her true nature start to take over. The thing she knew best was her ability to fish for humans; the waning interest of the entire guard for the groups she brought in had her feeling insecure. She couldn't fathom what could have the guard indifferent of their food. She was also puzzled why everybody suddenly had taken up her habit of wearing contacts. The castle wasn't the safe haven she'd always thought it was—the freedom of showing off your red eyes and acting like true vampires with all its gruesome traits had always been reassuring to her. How did it happen that acting like their prey had become in fashion, even as far as wearing colored contacts to look more human in the process? Her mind was rejecting everybody who seemed different.

One of her tasks was manning the reception desk. Sometimes that was enough to secure a busload of people. Unaware that Demetri and Felix worked hard to free the tourists she secured as food, she thought both holding areas were full to the brim and kicked back at the desk, for once relaxing on duty.

I had addressed the letter to Volturi Enterprises in Volterra Castle, Volterra, and hand delivered it to the DHL offices in Pisa, racing back to the cave afterward. The courier shuffled into the funeral home-like foyer of the castle. He was quick to throw the letter on the desk, thrust the clipboard under Heidi's nose, and then almost ran outside again; it was clear that Heidi couldn't hide her hungry stare at the human. She had to have the least restraint of all of the guards. Being their "chef" as it were, she'd adopted a policy of instant gratification.

She took the letter with a bored expression…until she caught my scent on the envelope. Her mind went into overdrive. This would mean the humiliation of another coven, she thought with glee. Her bored attitude switched to one of excitement when she called for someone to take her place, her tone condescending to one of the higher-placed guards, acting as if she was the sister in the Royal council. Demetri, his inner pocket full of copies, came to relieve her. She scowled at his shining dark-blue eyes but found it beneath her to ask about, what she thought was, a fad. In another imperious comment, she told him that she had to deliver a most important letter to Aro. Demetri answered that he could do that for her, just to rile her up. Her reaction was a sneer, and off she went.

While she ran, her mind was debating if she should read the letter before delivering it. She wanted to know what I had to say. Her inner voice was again gleeful when she imagined it to be a begging letter full of whining and other pathetic outbursts. She liked that image so much that her decision to read the letter deviated to delivering it in a closed envelope.

She stopped at Aro's door, chatting for a few moments with Jane and Alec. Aro overheard their conversation, and her imperial tone, combined with her insincere inflection when she asked how he was, convinced him that he had lost the last of his confidants. He barked through the door that she needed to get back to her duties instead of idle chatting with his guard detail. Heidi scowled at his tone, and instead of opening the door and giving Aro the letter, she shoved it under the door. With a nod to the witch twins, she was off, back to the reception desk. Demetri took his leave with a gallant bow before he raced out of there to start the delivery of the copied letters.

Heidi plopped in the chair, when her eye fell on a piece of paper. She got it and started reading, her eyes getting bigger and bigger while her jaw had to be nearly disconnected from the marble floor. Her mind was in chaos. That letter was not what she was expecting. The last thing in her mind registered before I left it was a loop of: _This means big, big trouble, and I don't want to see that._

* * *

 **Well, I think Heidi just switched camps, from being in Aro's pocket to miss selfish all around. I don't think I mind that much, one less hurdle to overcome. Let me know what you think, please review, PM, look me up at facebook in Bubbleybear and Pienuniek's Story Nook, our group.**

 **Only three chapters remaining in this part of the story, there will be a third but the storyline is giving me trouble so I'm going to ask you all to be patient with me. The big lines are there, the execution of a crucial one not so much.**

 **My recomendations this week are both by Drotuno, simply because she writes such exellent stories I have to rec. them.**

 **Man Behind the Mask. What you see isn't Always what you get. By all appearances, Masen lives the life of seks, drugs, and rock-n-roll. He's living the dream that has turned into a nightmare because his life - and his reputation - is not his own. There mist be more to life than tour buses, groupies, paprazzi, and slimy record producers. ffn 11066141**

 **Rain Must Fall. It's Always been said that Mother Nature finds a way to assert her power. This time, she unleased something that walls and fences couldn't contain. Separated by an entire country, Edward and Bella must fight to stay alive in a world determined to deatroy them, a world Edward must cross to get to his family, and a world where the dead don't Always stay dead. ffn 10751629**

 **See you all next week.** **Enjoy reading.**

 **Pien**


	21. Chapter 21 Time to Hang the True Laundry

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **We are getting near the end, I won't keep you long but I have to thank my bestie Lorraine Bubbleybear for keeping me on track, and JenRar for her awsome beta skills.**

 **Let's go and flatten Aro.**

* * *

Chapter 21 Time to Hang the True Laundry out to Dry.

EPOV

At long last, the day I could stop impersonating laundry was near. I was pretty tired of hanging around, not being able to move. I had almost completely lived in my mind—even when I was projected, my physical body wasn't involved. It was, of course, fantastic that I could roam around with my glorious mate, but come on… Living in my mind had had its time, and I wanted to run to Amsterdam and back to stretch my legs, maybe throw in a swim and make it to London instead.

Ah well. I had to soldier on for a little bit. The week since Bella's letter arrived had been the best entertainment yet. The whole castle was buzzing with anticipation. From the highest to the lowest person, everybody was in on the letter, and every single person had read it multiple times. Vampire memory be damned, they had to read it again to believe the gall my mate had shown in that piece of prose.

Aro had gotten into a snit fit. He was affronted to say the least. From his point of view, the law was beneath him. Laws were made to keep his underlings in their place, not to follow himself. His self-doubts were shoved out of the way, and he started to strategize. He hoped that Bella would show up alone, an easy target. He just couldn't wait it out, though. Thinking it a good idea to split up the, in his mind, traitors guarding his door, he sent Alec to find my wife and catch her unaware. He ordered him to subdue her to bring her in. A quick discussion with Jasper and Marcus later, and a game plan was devised.

Alec roamed in ever bigger circles around the castle, dismissing Marcus's scent as the trails of his walks. Bella had been careful and only used the garage entrance to the cave. Her tracks were few and all old. The last few weeks, she never went out at all. To put the plan into action, she used Afton to get out undetected. He'd been loyal to Marcus from day one. Aro never even knew he had a spy. Nobody could sense him if he didn't want them to. He didn't know about my power, and I had made use of his open mind on many occasions. When Marcus asked him to escort Bella to Pisa without being detected, he snorted and told Marcus that his power was personal and that he couldn't cover other people. His mouth had been catching flies for five full minutes when Marcus explained about her power, that she would borrow his, without rendering him unable to cloak.

The third night they were out, Bella was hit by Alec's thoughts on the outer border of her periphery. She dropped Afton's cloak and started walking in his direction like she had no worry in the world. In her mind, she looked like Dr. Octopus from the comics, stretching out her tentacles to catch Alec as soon as he was in her range. She wanted him snared before he could lay eyes on her. Unlike his execution of his power, her tentacles gave her an immediate response. She would incapacitate him the moment his devious mist appeared in between them. Of course it went off without a hitch, and he was brought stiff as a board to the cave, where he was dismembered and became the second head case in Bella's cabinet. The rest of him disappeared into the incinerator.

Problem number one turned into advantage one. Bella was over-the-top happy with her new head case—tranquilizer, said the tag—until she realized she couldn't walk in with the cabinet in tow. And because she needed me there in both mind and body, she wouldn't have a conduit to work through. That is, until Afton sat down on a chair, forgetting he was cloaked, and the chair disappeared as well. They found out that he could cloak objects he was in contact with, but the personal aura, as it were, of a person resisted cloaking. The head did have an aura, but the boxes were enough of a barrier to shield those, and the head cases became objects, disappearing when he touched them.

It was time. Bella wandered into the funeral-home-like lobby of the castle, looking around as if she was lost. She seemed to be alone, but Afton walked behind her carrying the two head cases, cloaked. The moment Bella noticed Heidi sitting behind the desk, her face lit up and she almost skipped toward her. Heidi stiffened.

"Good afternoon. Could you tell me if I'm in the right place? I'm searching for a coffin to place in my bedroom."

After a comical double take, Heidi scoffed at her and began to dismiss her. Bella let out a very girlish giggle.

"I'm sorry, I always wanted to, just once, be like a vampire of legend. Where better to try and do that than here at the heart of the vampire realm.

"Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Bella Masen, and I believe I have an appointment with the baboons that think they are leaders of our world. Dictators is what they are, thinking they're above the law! You look appropriately subservient to announce my presence. Now, chop, chop. Show me in."

Her stance went from being like the teenager she still was to the confident coven leader she had become. Heidi saw the change, and her mind went into overdrive. She didn't understand why Bella would walk all alone into the biggest coven in the world, still looking confident. Her certainty in her leaders was broken down even more. It made her scramble to follow Bella's command. She ran toward the elevator and had to stiffen her spine not to bow Bella onto it. They arrived at the grand double doors that opened before them when they walked toward them. Heidi shuffled into the cavernous room and announced that Bella Masen had arrived for her audience. After her words, she moved backward and almost hid behind the guards lining the room.

Bella showed me the layout of the room. Opposite the door was the dais holding the three thrones seating the three leaders. Marcus and Caius sported red contacts over their green eyes. A slow look around the room, as much as she could without turning her back on the dais, showed the entire guard lining the room, all with the telltale lines of contacts in their eyes. The rest of the room I'd already caught from Marcus, who was more than obliging to show me our arena.

I prepared myself to do my part of Aro's downfall. The doomed dictator rose to his feet and took one step forward. He wanted to establish height over Bella, still convinced she was a temporary threat. His over-self-assured mind already saw us both being shoved into the incinerator for defying his might. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started.

"There's the little newborn. You're delusional if you think you, all on your own, can do what you laid out in your letter. You're not that smart, are you? You really think I would give you your mate back, just like that? Stupid, stupid little girl. Your blatant walk into this room was suicide, but I am curious as to why you would even try such a thing."

Even though he disparaged Bella with every word he spat out, her stance and air remained confident. She looked like a patient mother waiting out her toddler's tantrum. The loyalties swirled around the room, some detaching themselves entirely from the Volturi and aligning themselves with my incomparable mate. She hadn't even spoken a word. That was about to change.

Before she spoke, she angled her body toward Marcus and bowed her head, acknowledging her leader. Her ice-cold stare then landed on a fuming Aro, his mind seething over her undisguised contempt for him. "To satisfy your curiosity, I _am_ here by myself but not alone at all. You've gotten sloppy, Aro! You misjudged a lot of vampires in the last year alone. You've misjudged some for over a thousand years..."

If it had been possible, Aro would have been tomato red or even eggplant purple, and smoke would have been rising from his ears. As it was, he stood still like a statue in an earthquake. His vampire nature warred with his human one as he shook in place. His mind was in complete chaos—everything he was in conflict with, everything we fed him to break that persona down. The last shit won, making him lash out in self-defense. Gone was the self-assured leader of the vampire world. In his stead stood the young boy that lost his big sister not once, but twice, even if he created the second time himself in his selfish pursuit of greatness.

 _"You are alone, and don't think you'll be leaving here in one piece. I'll make sure of that, right now!"_ he shouted, sounding panicked and enraged at the same time.

That was my cue.

At the same time Bella said, "So I'm alone, am I?" I projected myself next to her.

"Excuse me. I think that you're way out of line. My mate hardly said anything to you, but you're willing to rip her apart, to blatantly disregard every rule you yourself have crafted. I'd like an explanation for your erratic behavior. _Right now_!" I said, grabbing Bella's hand.

That, of course, threw ample fuel on Aro's fire. I monitored his mind and knew he would try to unleash Jane on us. His memory of how successful she was the last time we were here was in front of his mental eye. His left hand twitched in some kind of forward motion, and anticipation lay like a thick blanket on his brain, but absolutely nothing happened. He made the move again, this time less covert. It wasn't a twitch. It was four fingers swaying from back to front. Everybody was waiting on his response to my inflammatory remark. Nothing happened again, but inside my mind, the girlish giggles rang through our mental home. Bella was enjoying herself, thwarting his attempts by sedating Jane with her brother's power, just enough to keep her standing but unresponsive. Jane's mind was blank. She seemed frozen in time. Her eyes showed no emotions. It was clear to almost everyone that she was being held in Alec's power. I said almost, because Aro thought he knew the reason for her unwillingness to follow orders.

Aro turned on Jane, giving her the full force of his ire. "Do as you're told!"

Nothing.

"I said do as you are told! What in the blazes is wrong with you? Do _not_ defy me!"

Of course, no reaction in any way was forthcoming.

"Listen, if you don't comply, I'm going to make you into an example for them all!"

He waited for two seconds for her to comply, and then he turned and ripped her apart in less than ten seconds. Dropping the pieces to the ground, he ordered Demetri to get rid of them. Demetri was quick to respond—wise move, because Aro wouldn't have hesitated to progress his lesson onto him as well. He gathered all the pieces and moved to the incinerator behind the thrones, while Aro glared around the room to spot any other guard showing signs of betrayal.

Demetri threw the torso and limbs into the furnace, and then with a wink our way, he stashed the head behind the contraption. Another power saved for future use.

"Now, back to the pathetic coven leaders. You, mister… How the hell did you get out?"

I just shrugged my shoulders, riling Aro up as much as possible. He looked more and more like a manic-depressed person off his meds. He _had_ to be pushed to act so deranged that the guard would follow our lead. Most would already but some still couldn't see past Aro and see Marcus leading them. That was, of course, Marcus's own fault; most of the guards never knew him outside the morose persona he projected in the castle. The opinion of those guards was paramount to the success of our mission. Aro had to show consistent deranged behavior for them to be Marcus's guards for sure. My disrespectful silence after a direct question had Aro, once again, at steam level.

" _Answer me_!" he screamed at me.

"Why should I? Everything we're saying will just anger you more. I'll tell you this, though. You're now not only sloppy but downright negligent."

And three, two, one... Bingo! Aro snapped and came running at me, screaming incoherent sentences, at top vampire speed. When I peeked into his mind with caution, his mental landscape showed the degradation of the clarity of his mind. It was total chaos. Unrelated subjects influenced each other. One thing, though, dominated his entire being: destroying me, preferably by flattening me into a pulp. His acceleration was impressive. His only problem became obvious on impact: I was less than solid. His Superman-like dive to flatten me to the floor, even if it was several floors lower, ended in him flat on his face while I stepped out of him, never releasing Bella's hand.

Aro flew to his feet and tried to slap me in the face several times, each time with more force, as if I would become solid if he hit harder. The last time, he exerted so much force, he spun around three times before gearing up for another try. Marcus and Caius each grabbed one of his arms, however, and dragged him back to the dais. Now convinced that everybody was against him, he stood there like a statue for at least ten minutes. His mind was in such chaos that I fled it after just a few seconds. At the same moment, I went back to my body to prepare for being "set free." I had stayed in my cell, but Marcus and Demetri had let me down and given me clean clothes and two bowls of water, towels, and soap for body and hair. I snorted at the clothes Bella had sent: my power suit I'd worn the last time we were there.

Aro didn't even notice my disappearance, he was so deep in thought. About nine minutes into his meditation, Bella dragged me into our control room and showed me the vision she had just received through the future-seeing head case. Completely disconnected from reality, Aro decided that if everybody was against him, he would burn them all. Beside the cushion on his throne, he had stashed one of the nastiest devices he'd come up with. It was a staff-like device with a gas canister and lighting mechanism. A jumbo lighter, if you please. He was all but ready to implement his crazy idea to burn us all, guard included. That was not what Bella had in mind. She immobilized him enough, with Alec's power, that he could move his head and talk but nothing more.

The moment he realized he was incapacitated, Aro descended into a tantrum of epic proportions. The thing was, though, that his body language was contradictory to what came out of his mouth. His body radiated determination, but his childish name-calling wasn't worthy of a four-year- old with adult word approval. He cursed Alec to high hell and back, trying to crane his neck to find him in the crowd. That wish was granted by Bella, who took case number two from a now visible Afton and slid it open. Aro's face was hilarious, looking at the bodiless head encased in a box.

"Now, Aro, I stopped you," Bella spoke with flair and determination, "because you acted like the typical dictator up against too many with the truth on their side. Destroy it all to keep myself safe. Such a feeble defense. Such a panic move. What did you try to say? If you add that many curses, Aro, you'll never be understood... Oh, hold your breath. I got it, you sad excuse for a vampire. Yes, I stopped you, with the help of what is left of one of your twins.

"You see, everybody knows of your fear of mental pain, especially the pain left from the change. If you apply mental discipline, it becomes child's play to rearrange your mind and put everything you don't want to be known by you behind the pain. That's what our whole coven did. We hid the sensitive information we weren't inclined to divulge to your greedy mind.

"Oh! Afton, Demetri, do me a favor and collect my mate from the dungeon that weasel over there threw him in. Edward is ready to join us. I'll wait until we're reunited before giving everyone the information needed for the trial of Aro Volturi."

Less than a minute later, the door to the stinking hole I'd spent almost four months in swung open and a pair of vampires with grins as big as the distance to the sun on their faces walked in. Their smiles, if it was possible, grew even more when they saw my suit. Demetri casually dropped a gallon of heaven in my hands. I couldn't call it Monster, as the replacement blood was called, because every sip brought me into my own personal heaven.

Demetri was still gleeful but urged me on. He knew Bella would wait on her reinforcements and the evidence screens that were readied and that could be used to project things from her mind. We left the dungeons at a light jog—well, a full-on sprint for a human, I suppose—to the lobby six floors above. Nobody told me, but I realized that I had been held in the deepest layer of the castle. Due to my mind reading, I hadn't seen that yet. I had been in the minds of others so much, I hadn't noticed the lack of daylight. I also disassociated from the dungeon as much as possible, existing in our bright and welcoming mental abode.

In the lobby, we were welcomed by a sight I had been missing. My entire coven, except Bella, stood waiting for me, an anxious Didyme being held between Rosalie and Emmett. Didyme's eyes widened at me in my suit. I pulled out my most charming smile to reassure her, thankful when it seemed to work. I greeted everybody, ending it with her.

"I'm so glad to meet you. I never thought that my great-aunt would turn out to be my wife's sister."

Her giggles rang across the hall.

 _'Edward, I can hear you. Please hurry. My audience is getting antsy. They don't understand your remark. It makes the loyalties waver again.'_ Bella's voice came through the link with some impatience.

I led the group into the throne room. The view was almost the same as I'd constructed while still in the dungeon. The only thing that had changed was Aro. They'd turned him to face the room instead of his throne.

"There they are. I was alone, was I, Aro? I need to explain some things to the public assembled here. Aro dismissed us in November, believing I was the only one in the coven with a fairly weak power. What he didn't know was that we all made sure our minds were organized with a place he would avoid at all cost. As I said before, there's more to us than we show at first hand. I will only tell you my power. The others will show or tell their own. I'm what's called a mimic. I can borrow any power or ability from anyone near me. That's how I stopped you, by using the number-two power.

"I need to get a little more info out there. Aro, until about a year ago, you knew the most about vampire royalty, except maybe the ancients that were left. You heard it all, but you never even had the idea to tell it to a soul. You buried it deep into a file in your mind. I found it all, using your own power on you the way it was meant to be used. I waded through the mess that is your brain. What were you doing? Creating a new kind of royalty? Going against everything you learned? What are you? A teenager stuck in his I'm-against-authority craze? I think you did it all because you're one jealous little runt that couldn't stand being little and you were bullied into becoming one. Well, look at you now. It worked, until the anti-bullying squad caught you."

While Bella stated her case, Afton busied himself with setting up two of the biggest flat screens I'd ever seen, each of them mounted on a sturdy stand in between the thrones on the dais.

"First we hoodwinked you into believing we were all powerless. That day, the moment you were done testing me, I raided your mind with your own power. Your mind, not the moving boxes, with the stolen content of other's thoughts. I worked you hard. I had to get most of it before your rant then was over. And I did! I stored everything for later perusal.

"Let me just say that that perusal took us three days. It gave us the list of infractions on vampire law you have committed. No _maybe_ about it. You either did it yourself—and that is this list."

Bella pointed to the left screen, where the crimes he had his hands on appeared scrolling over it.

"Or you thought it up and made others do your bidding."

The same thing happened on the right screen, just another list. Muffled cries could be heard when members of the guard saw the crimes that inducted them into it. The covens destroyed on trumped-up charges just to save the powerful member. To bind that vampire to the Volturi using Chelsea.

Bella went on explaining Vampire royalty to everybody in the room, explaining difficult bits with simple examples, until she was sure everybody understood the rules we knew of at that moment. She then stepped aside and turned the room over to me. I jumped in without introduction.

"You undermined your own home-grown empire, Aro. I read minds without having to make contact. My range on an average day is anything between three and ten miles. To make you even more jealous, I'm the descendant in direct line of Marcus, as Bella is to Didyme. We are mated just like our ancestors, a true Royal mating. That gives the pair a very special bond. So you not only had me listening in but my Bella as well. She used my power to locate those people she wanted to use her power on—mainly you. I also used her power to show you your future, or at least the one I imagined.

"You asked yourself how it was possible that my Bella took so long before she came for me. Well, it's simple. We were never apart. We could talk and live inside our mental home. It's the most incredible place. You can't even imagine the possibilities there."

Bella snorted in our mind, throwing her side of the dancing on the ceiling bit and my impersonation of the Nanny on our flat screen. Outwardly she stayed composed, cool as a cucumber. I proceeded with laying down my case.

"One of the first rules the creators of vampires lay on them was that they had to keep the secret and abstain from the best-smelling food. They ordered the entire race to feed from animals until they had the technology to create a substitute. You changed that. They wanted us to be strong and show that by abstinence. You took the weak way and made it law. You failed your upstanding vampire 101 test, memory collector. That's your designation from now on, that or number-four power."

I shrugged, showing how little I cared for him. In his mind, the outraged thoughts exploded once more. He got stuck on a detail in my speech. He recalled Bella calling Alec the number-two power. The fact that I now called him number-four power had him raging once again. He should be number one! Just to prove my power, I addressed him.

"What, do you still think you're above everyone? You're pathetic! You'll be number-four power for eternity, because that's exactly the place you belong. As the fourth addition, done out of pity by your magnificent sister. You should have been honored to kiss the floor she walked on. But no, Mister I Know It All, even if you don't, you found it necessary to have her murdered."

Gasps rang through the room. Bella made sure to call up the pages we had sent to Marcus with Aro's meticulous planning for the event. There was no way the murder had been an accident. Demetri chose that moment to whisper to Bella that he needed to prepare Jane's head before all venom dripped out. Bella made a gesture, and Kate presented a box with a three written on top to Demetri, who accepted it with big smile, and while he walked to the stage exit at the back of the dais, he fished the head from behind the incinerator.

Aro exploded. "Demetri, how _dare_ you!"

His voice shot through five octaves. Impressive.

Demetri looked at him. Aro could only see him from the corners of his eyes, because he was turned away from him.

Demetri's face turned angry. "Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist, you ancient goat, and do the smart thing. Shut up. You are powerless. You have been since Bella blocked it in the off mode."

After that remark, he disappeared through the door. The other guards didn't like that much. They were curious how a head would be prepared for a box. The only one who had seen Alec's head in its box was Aro, and he was glad he didn't need to see that. Probably because we all but promised him he'd be in one.

"So, the interruption is over. I would like to give the floor to the person hurt the most by your misguided ideas of world domination. He will be your prosecutor, and the guard will be the jury. We already showed you the indictment straight from your own memory. You won't need a judge. The evidence is undeniably true. So I will join my coven and listen to our true leader: Marcus."

* * *

 **I did not just do that... Yes, I did. *Hiding behind the couch* If I hadn't cut it off here the chapter would have grown too long. If you do so feel inclined I accept ranting reviews but the Cliffie stays put. Please review.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **The Role of a Lifetime by letzigprincess. Fighting for a divorce, Edward struggles to care for his two year old daughter. Enter Bella Swan, college student and new neighbor. Will Edward fall back into the arms of his ex or into the heart of his daughter's babysitter? ffn 6993525**

 **Figure Eight by tufano79. Bella Swan is a nationally ranked paired skater with Jacob Black. Edward Masen is a beautiful British skater paired with Tanya. However, both of their partners fall into hard times. These two try to navigate their way through life, both on and off the ice. ffn7336102**

 **Enjoy reading,**

 **Pien**


	22. Chapter 22 The End Prommissing a New Beg

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 ***Waving white handkerchief over the top of the couch.* I'm glad you're all still here. Can I please emerge from my exile to post the next and final bit of Aro's existence?**

 **My thanks go out to Lorraine and JenRar, they keep me motivated and readable.**

 **Here we go, I give the floor to Marcus through Bella's mind.**

* * *

Chapter 22 The End Promising a New Beginning.

BPOV

With grace, Marcus took over from Edward. At last I could step into my mate's embrace and be next to him again. I burrowed into his arms, my back against his chest. I tried to become one with him, to get inside him and never leave again. This was what I had missed for those four months he'd been hanging in that awful bunker. I felt us both relax into each other. I hadn't realized just how much the physical separation had tensed me up until that moment. It showed me that, even though we had mental access, the physical access was just as important to keep our bond whole.

For those four months, our electricity had been absent. With it restored, we were able to concentrate on Marcus addressing Aro.

"You are my brother-in-law, but I can't find a shred of your family values carried over into your character. I've never met a more self-centered person in all my three and a half millennia on earth. Even now, when you have to realize your reign is over, you're still trying to micromanage your own place in the new order. You're going to get exactly what you deserve, the fourth place in a collection of powers ready to serve the most versatile member of the royal council."

I gasped at his description. I might have a useful power, but why was mine the most versatile? Marcus's own had layers upon layers created through training.

 _'Bella, shut up, he's right,'_ my mate chastised my insecure rambling.

"Yes, Bella, you and Edward already are members of the council. It's time that I took my rightful place back.

"My first order of business will be to make my brother- in-law understand what he did. Let's go through the list you provided. His first blatant disregard of vampire law was him changing two teenagers. He found them tied to stakes, minutes away from being burned as suspected witches, all because their mother sold herbal medicine. If he'd raised them until adulthood, he would have acted responsibly. He chose not to do that. tTheir sweet scent led him to believe they'd have strong powers. Changing them so young and brainwashing them during their change made them docile newborns, deathly afraid of him."

A muted, garbled hiss sounded from the power cabinet. It seemed that particular remark had angered number two so much that he vocalized without vocal cords or a tongue. At moments like this, I was glad we had an ignore setting on the personal thoughts of the powers. The future seeing cleared right up the moment we took those out of the equation. If it was beneficial to number two's power, I didn't know, but the silence was good for my patience.

"Jasper, could I beg you to assist me? Kate, you might want to help him. Can you please make Aro experience the loss I felt for fifteen hundred years after he used children to murder my mate? Be prepared… Now!"

Jasper dropped to his knees the moment the sorrow hit, but he gathered the foreign pain and pushed it all right into Aro's frozen form. His body couldn't react in its paralyzed state. I made sure to thaw the heart; he had to learn the heartbreak he'd caused. His body still radiated the confidence he had when he wanted to burn us all. His face, however, looked as if he was aging at a high speed. It crumpled. He wailed and cried, begging for it to stop.

I froze his vocal cords to silence him. I had to say something to the sorry excuse of a vampire being schooled in losing a mate.

"Take it like a man, Aro. You're acting as if I took one of your toys away. You're a sad and pathetic boy. Did you ever hear Marcus complain? He lived with this pain, a pain you deliberately made him feel, for fifteen hundred years. Stop it after just a few minutes? I don't think so. Jasper, let me take over. I can see the strain it puts on you. I can stay unaffected."

Jasper allowed me to take the task away from him.

"How long can you keep this up, Bella?" Marcus asked.

"Well, if someone could spare me a gallon of base, indefinitely. Please, no additions. I hate those. I am a new kind of vampire. I loathe human blood. I'll drink plain base until Carlisle develops animal additions, for me as well as my sister."

Aro's curiosity came to the surface when I referenced my sister. He assumed it was the family thing again. I picked up on his thoughts that screamed out at both Edward and me, his vocal cords still paralyzed. I decided to make Edward voice his thoughts. Edward, of course, picked up without a pause.

"So, Aro, I'm going to translate and edit your thoughts. All those moans can stay inside your head. He heard Bella mention her sister and now wonders if that is more of that family crap Alice tried to feed him."

"No," I answered. "I mean my biological sister. We share our father. She, too, will be changed like I was."

Marcus paced in front of Aro. You could see Aro's gaze follow his form. Before I got too mesmerized by the steady movement, I prompted Marcus to move on and explain what he was doing. He opened his mouth to get on with his verbal display of Aro's crimes, only to be interrupted by the door at the back of the dais opening and Demetri reappearing, carrying the box and a gallon of base. He told me in his mind that he added the additions that smelled less human to make the power boost bigger.

"Now, if everybody is present, I'd like to continue," Marcus said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "This race was created by visionaries who had a strict way of life. They made the rules we had to live by. When I was created, a big revolt was going on. The revolutionaries tried, and nearly succeeded, to destroy all the ancients who still lived by the rules. My sire was one of them and taught me the important rules while I was in my newborn year. He also told me the basics of vampire royalty. He had to disappear just before I gained control. His last warning was to keep to the rules he'd ingrained in me.

"When the frenzy of power-hungry miscreants subsided, ten years had passed. I had gone back to my hometown five years into this life and changed my brother, once five years my junior, now eternally the same age. As was explained to me, a single ruler was not done in the vampire realm. To keep decisions fair, a council had to be in place of at least two but preferably three to five members. Every member of the council had to be royal. That's why I changed my brother. Going by the familial bond, I assumed him to be royal. He proved to be a good companion, but only in these last months did I discover that he wasn't royal. As is the case with Aro. He is the brother of Didyme, but her younger sister became the royal heir after she was changed. He still could have become royal if she died before she had an heir. She did not. She gave birth to her eldest daughter just two weeks after her sister disappeared, forever making Aro a commoner.

"Caius and I drove out the simpering dictator who had taken the throne alone when the two biggest rivaling factions destroyed each other. As my sire had told me, we waited until everything calmed, never taking sides, always in hiding feeding off animals and training our restraint. Sparring amongst ourselves to train ourselves. Even in hiding, we gathered some like-minded vampires who wanted to exist in peace—the beginning of the guard. We marched into the clearing that was the court in those days and confronted the ruler on his lack of leadership or rules to follow. He even wanted to become a known ruler to the humans, going against the number-one rule the creators had given us—keep the secret.

"Just our show of confidence was enough for his ragtag bunch of followers to change sides and leave him alone on his carved log."

The room was sparkling with the anticipation of the guards. Even Aro forgot to whimper mentally when he listened to Marcus's story. He was shocked that he'd never found those memories in his explorations of Marcus's mind. There were some who had a different emotion. Wistfulness tinged with guilt came from Demetri. Using Aro's power, I found out that he was one of the followers of the leader Marcus had deposed. He was wistful because he wished he had found Marcus before he gave his allegiance to that schmuck.

Edward nudged me to listen to the thoughts outside the room. There weren't many. It seemed the entire castle had converged in the throne room. That wasn't the case, though. We could hear two minds conversing. Yes, I said conversing, and they even giggled up a storm. A quick grab with Aro's power taught me their names were Loretta and Paulette, identical twins, changed by an ancient with a bonding power. It gave them the twin connection on steroids. They lived and worked in tandem their minds connected like Edward's and mine. With a shock, I realized they'd been with Marcus even before he changed Caius. Aro had dismissed them as useless because they didn't have a power, besides being super twins. Marcus had given them the library to run, to keep the mating registry and anything else that needed records. Their role there had been invaluable. They kept ancient texts out of Aro's hands, stocking the library in the cave with those texts deemed inappropriate for any of the guards to know about.

"Caius and I ruled the vampire world from then on, only acting harshly when one of the rules was in danger to be exposed to non-vampires. We even left the choice of food source free, as long as it was done discretely. We kept our diet like we were taught, to animals."

A triumphant scream ran over our mental sound system. Aro thought he'd won one of his petty battles by getting Caius and Marcus to convert to humans. Oh, would he be disappointed later.

"We found our way of doing things and ruled for about a millennium before I met my Didyme. She was just there, already knowing what I was. We just clicked. The happiest years of my existence commenced…until we went back to induct her sister into the whole vampire-royal-heir thing. Her little brother was heartbroken she'd disappeared. Even though we didn't show ourselves to him, that was what we picked up viewing from a distance. I gave into Didyme's pleas to take him with us and by doing so made the biggest mistake I ever made.

"I brought my mate's little brother into our coven and gave him a token job, managing the guard for missions. He took to the job like a house on fire. The only thing I noticed was his obsession with those guards who had powers. He didn't like ordinary vampires, as he called them. He tried more than once to get Caius off the council in favor of himself, until I told him to keep to his own job and stop infringing on territory that wasn't his. I should have been suspicious he didn't put up more of a fight. The next big thing that happened was the murder of my beloved mate. It threw me temporarily into a deep depression, that is until I found myself standing face to face with her murderers.

"I was struck dumb when I was confronted by two child-vampires only just beyond the immortal child stage. The next moment, their scents hit my nostrils, and my depression faded away and my need for revenge surfaced. Their scent had been all over my Didyme's murder site. I didn't know their origins, and they put me on edge. In that split second, I decided that revenge was best served cold. I needed to find the vampire responsible for their actions.

"I couldn't trust anyone but those who had been with me since the beginning. Their loyalties stayed firm through everything. I remained my own morose self inside the castle but started to go on nightly walks. By this time, Aro had taken over the council as regent. He knew how I would vote on most things and blackmailed Caius into always disagreeing with me, to ensure his vote would be the deciding one. One of the first things he had pushed through was feeding on humans was the only way to go. Why would we abstain from the most delicious food out there? Well, Aro, to be worthy to lead our people and protect the secret, I never wavered from my diet. I drank just enough human blood to keep my eyes red. The rest of my sustenance came from imported, specially bred herds of deer."

Aro's arrogant expression fell off his face faster than a speeding bullet. He seemed to slump into the invisible restraints on his limbs. I believed that if I lifted the freezing force on his legs, they would buckle. He began to realize a lot had gotten by him, even though he had an awesome power. He finally realized that his own arrogance had brought him down.

"After he had raided Chelsea from her coven, aided by Jane and Alec, he began his reign of juvenile decisions, always with him as the one and only true leader of the vampire world. Chelsea's power had no effect on me. The only bond I treasured, she couldn't touch because my mate lived on inside me. When she tried to bind me to the generic Volturi name, it didn't do much either. After all, I was the only true royal there. How much more could I be bonded to my own name? I had discovered much of our heritage from my mate. She wrote down everything she remembered for future generations of her line. I read it all before she gave those journals to her sister to safeguard the knowledge for the future."

The thoughts of the guards started to converge on the scrolling lists on the screens, putting the things there together with Marcus's personal story. Let's just say that Aro came up short at every turn. From what I gathered, the whole focus of the Volturi shifted when Aro took over. Didyme's original power had been creating peace. With her removed, Aro's schemes to bring about an empire of his own design came partially into fruition.

"Aro had his own ideas of how our world had to function. He replaced respect with fear, free will with indoctrination. He started to mess up almost as soon as he started. Without Caius and me covertly running the day-to-day administration of our world, it would have ended in disaster. He was so sure he did it all right that he never bothered to check behind his back. We tried to keep track of all violations of the original laws and schmoozed him into upholding a few of the most important registers. Well, we squeezed several registers into one. The mating register is an overall database of all vampires that are mated.

"That routine went on until two rogue vampires were reported and caught last year. It brought the Masen coven to our attention. Unknown to my brother-in-law, I am Edward Masen's mentor. He contacted me with some interesting ideas before they came over the first time. One of those ideas was very interesting for me especially. Edward's mate, Bella, heard the truth about vampires shortly after they met and looked through every layer of added legend and asked why in heaven's name bereaved mates didn't search the earth for their mate's reincarnation or walk into a volcano and start over the human way. A human girl with such insight. I was baffled. I would have never thought of it. It was as if a whole new world opened up to me. My goal was finally clear. I would find my Didyme again with their help."

An excited buzz went through the room. The clearer thoughts linked the heartbeat in the room with this bit of Marcus's exposé. A group of newer guards perked up. Aro had taken all will to exist away from them when he eliminated their covens and mates. He was just looking for the power in the group and wasn't interested in mating bonds. There was one who started to pray and prepare for a walk into a volcano.

"My epiphany bore fruit, and the Masen coven, cleansed from some unsavory influences, joined me here in Italy, and we started the research. After exhausting searches, we got our hands on some evidence to prove my mate's whereabouts and identity. We had to track a human all over the United States to find him and his first-born daughter, the one he gave an old family name, to honor her ancestors, and so I got my Didyme back."

He held out his hand, and from the protective shield of Masen coven members stepped Didyme. A fierce expression on her face, she walked up to the first female guard she noticed and asked her if she could please help her. The guard nodded and followed her toward Aro, who was shaking in his ostentatious handmade boots. Marcus's mirth brought his thoughts into focus.

 _'Well, I'll be damned if she didn't walk straight up to Sulpicia.'_

With a friendly smile at Sulpicia, Didyme pointed at Aro's face. "If I do it myself, it wouldn't have the desired effect. Please, slap his face as hard as you can."

With a glint in her bright-blue eyes, Sulpicia slapped the hell out of Aro's cheek. At that moment, I felt regret that his cheek wouldn't turn red, until I saw that Sulpicia's handprint stood depressed in his face. The depressions lessened, and after about a minute, the handprint had disappeared. Yeah, still regret. That would have left a black eye and bruises on his cheekbone otherwise. I also noticed we'd been in the throne room so long that every guard's contacts had dissolved.

"Pleasure to meet you all. My name is Didyme O'Neill, reincarnation of Didyme of the Volturi and eternal mate to Marcus. This piece of shit is my little brother. Oh, sorry. I need to tell you all that at the precise moment Marcus and I reconnected, my memories of my past life were given back to me. So, yeah, that lowlife betrayed me, the one who raised him from the age of four."

She turned to Aro and addressed him directly. "Not only did you plan to have me murdered, but you used children to do it—an act lower than the foundations of this castle. You then went on and showed your weakness by going for the easy kill, even having your prey delivered to your rooms. Spoiled brat! Look at you. Even with Bella holding you up in the strange stasis number two can produce, you look as if the pain you caused Marcus will bring you down within the hour. That pain my mate endured for fifteen hundred years. _Fif. Teen. Hun. Dred. Years_ "—she stomped her foot with every syllable—"you weak-willed jackass. You condemned me to seventy incarnations where I was always alone because my soulmate was holed up in this stinking castle, trapped in his original timeline. You held him prisoner to act as a puppet in your council charade.

"Then you went on a rampage and destroyed covens of innocent vampires on trumped-up charges, only to acquire their members with a power. Nobody, not one of them, defied you. So why would you do that? To serve justice was your answer when it happened, but we here all know your real reason. Fear. You were always so afraid of being outgunned by the competition that didn't exist outside of this castle. But, being the dodo you are, even that was not enough. Oh noooo, you had to go and stomp over one of the most sacred laws. You had to meddle in the mating bonds of others. You had this problem when you were human; an abundance was still not enough. You can't deny it… It wasn't until Kebi showed you a mated female would maim any male besides her mate that you gave up on Bella becoming your concubine!"

Edward involuntary crouched, and a menacing growl flew out before he controlled himself. Most males and all females were disgusted.

"Oh, Bella, could you be so kind to add a jolt or two from number three to the separation pain he now has to endure?"

I found out that number three was quite unmanageable. I would have to teach it manners, because that particular power packed a punch. Aro got it pounding full force into his unprotected body parts—his head and heart; the rest was still held in number two's grasp. I didn't have control over the level of the power. It might have been out of revenge for her destruction. It might have been in her nature. But there was no time to test that theory. After about two seconds, I cut the tendrils and decided to quarantine number three for a long time. Number one graced me with a vision of me being able to control number three. That was a good decision, then.

"Did you ever try to learn more about your own race? I think not. You used the minute amount of knowledge you gathered in that cavernous head of yours as the bible of all wisdom. What wasn't there didn't exist. You found a political advantageous mate, so you mated her. To you, human found mates and true vampire mates were myth, because you mated on political grounds. How stupid can you be? Your choice in mating once again was the weakest form around, but to you there wasn't anything higher than gaining power through it.

"So incredibly sad, and if you hadn't hurt so many, I would ask for banishment. Although, you intended to rule the world, and we still haven't acquired the knowledge to travel to other worlds for your banishment. My second option is total destruction. The problem with that is that it would give you another chance to live a life, another chance to torture others. So my choice will be the third option: eternal servitude in anonymity. You'll become number four, the memory harvester, one of the powers that will aid my sister in her work. Ironic, isn't it, after one and a half millennium of gathering powers, your power will now be harvested and used to create peace born from mutual respect."

Marcus smiled at Didyme and took her place. She stepped back between Rose and Emmett.

"Okay, I think it's time to let Aro have his say in his defense. Bella, I think just holding him will suffice. I don't think that the moans and whimpers will help us understand him."

He was right, of course. I lowered the separation pain to nearly zero. The last bit was to keep him on edge. I watched Jasper to gauge if I'd dialed it back enough, which seemed to be the case. The creases around his eyes, the only indication he felt the pain, had smoothed out. Marcus then asked every member of the council, as he saw it, their opinion about Aro's punishment. It became a unanimous vote for eternal servitude.

Aro snarled and almost shouted, "Why would those who consider themselves my victims be the ones deciding my fate? Where's the justice in that? Shouldn't there be an impartial set of vampires to judge me?"

I snorted. "Well, Aro, name me twelve vampires you haven't antagonized, and you're in business. Seeing that you succeeded in antagonizing the most peaceful coven in the world, I don't think there are known vampires who support you or are unbiased."

Aro fell silent, sagging in his invisible bonds, defeated.

Marcus paced, obviously thinking. I dove into his thoughts and found that Aro's last remark had struck a chord. He also took my answer into consideration. After about five minutes of going over pros and cons, he took one last subconscious-level look at the loyalties in the room. He decided to give everyone in the room an equal vote.

"Okay, listen up. Each and every vampire in this castle gets a vote, and every vote has the same value. I'd like to ask Edward to give me the votes of the vampires not present in this room." He took a good look around. "Only three people seem to be missing: Loretta, Paulette, and Heidi. So, Edward, if you please?"

Edward cast out his power to its maximum distance, an impressive twelve miles now, and searched for the distinct mental voices of the three. The first two were in the library, of course, and voted when Edward said their name. Both went for the servitude. To Edward's surprise, he couldn't find Heidi's voice anywhere within his range. I stepped in, snagging a random person on the edge of his range and using that person as a router for his power. We did that until we had covered a circle with a twenty-four-mile radius. Without result, Heidi had disappeared.

"Heidi can't be found within the range of my power," Edward told Marcus, who decided that her vote would be in the fourth pile, the undecided one. He went to every guard one by one. Renata had switched one of the screens over to whiteboard mode and made tally marks for each option. Heidi's remained the only undecided. The runner up was total destruction, but the overwhelming winner was eternal servitude in a head case.

"Aro, anything more to add before you will be prepared for your new task in your eternal existence?" Marcus said with a solemn expression on his face.

"Where did innocent until proven guilty go?"

I sighed and stepped forward, once again displaying the lists of broken vampire laws on the screens.

"How daft are you, Aro? We proved your infractions on vampire laws, some of which you yourself implemented. These lists are compiled from information gathered with your own power from your own mind. Got it? We didn't need more proof. You gave us all the evidence we needed. So innocent wasn't even on the table in this trial. I came to accuse you of tampering with the mating laws and as a material witness because I gathered all your crap memories and sifted through them. So, quit the self-pitying, and if you have something substantial to say, do it now or hold your tongue until it's removed."

"You're all still losers. There will be others like me. The only way to rule efficiently is to strive for as much power as possible. It's in vampire nature to strive for power. You're all naive if you think that ruling vampires can be seen as a form of servitude. Enjoy your eternal struggle."

With that, Aro closed his mouth and eyes and shut us out of his delusional world.

Marcus took charge. He asked Edward and me mentally if we would like to remove a part ourselves. We shook our heads in perfect synchronicity. The final result was that our revenge picking at the pieces felt morbid and useless.

"Felix, Emmett, please remove his hands."

Emmett almost danced toward Aro's frozen body. He was honored he was chosen to help and reveled in a chance at some action. He'd been aching for it, and the whole verbal song-and-dance routine had him bored. Felix, too, had been bored and welcomed the chance to help Marcus into the saddle again.

Aro was soon relieved of his hands, feet, and one lower arm. The pieces were thrown into the incinerator one at the time to prolong the punishment phase of the process. The servitude would start when the case with the number four on the top had been transformed into a head case. At that point, Aro would lose his name, just like the other powers had.

When just the torso and head were left, almost every vampire in the room had plugged their ears against the shrill cries that made the windows rattle. It was a well-chosen punishment. Aro had always shied away from the transformation pain, and now he went through the exact same pain again to transform to his next incarnation in the same existence. His torso and mandible were removed. Felix and Emmett played tug of war over the torso until it ripped in two. Those parts were thrown into the fire one at the time, prolonging the time necessary for the burn. At last the mandible was thrown in and the door closed. Thank God that the removal of that body part cut off his screeches of pain.

An elder female vampire stepped forward and offered her services as hairdresser. She wanted to cut the hair to make it possible to mount the head. She had been one of the few who'd been able to look into number two's box. Felix held the head while she created a bun on top of his head. It looked like a cross between a ballet and a samurai bun.

Demetri took over then as the resident head mounter. He inserted the cannulas into the jugulars, making the other guards happy with the demonstration they had missed with number three. Then he attached the container stand, filling it with the remnants from my gallon of base. He dramatically placed the mounted head inside the box, connected the feeding tube to the container, and closed the lid.

That was the end of Aro and the beginning of number four, my memory harvester.

* * *

 **Well, Bella's permanent powers grew from just the one, mildly useful to four still somewhat rowdy powers. Her power cabinet is now really a cabinet, not just a cupboard with a box in it. Let me know what you thought of everythi. Please review.**

 **My recommendations this week are:**

 **Training the Swan by ericastwilight. Edward is the retired right hand man for a mob boss, Charlie Swan. When asked to train a woman to help protect herself and her daughter, he has no idea the trouble he'd find himself in. She's the boss's daughter. Can he keep his hands off? Ffn 5037413**

 **Life Support by shadowed by passion. Isabella Swan is an attorney at Cullen, Volturi and Denali who broke her laptop. Edward Masen works in tech support with his own issues that need fixing. What will happen when these two get together? Can he fix her laptop? Can she fix him?**

 **Next week the last chapter of part two of this trilogy. Part three, Aurora, is in the preliminary outline state. I've painted myself in a corner, the big idea is there, the final chapter is all but written, but how I'm going to get there is still in the wind. I'm also working on two other stories that need to get out of my system before I can concentrate on tying this one into a satisfactory bow to present to you all.**

 **See you next week for the final installment.**

 **Pien.**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just play with her characters. No copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Before us the final chapter of Parallax. I'd like to say thanks to all the readers, especially Lorraine Bubbleybear who guided me through the creative process of building this story. She was the mirror I needed to reflect my ideas in to test their viability. Special thanks also go out to JenRar who beta'd this puppy when my original beta couldn't do it anymore. In the coming weeks I'm going to replace all unbeta'd chapters.**

 **This is not the end, I'm working on the third and last story in this trilogy. I'm asking you all to be patient though. It will take me a while, still working on the storyline. I know what I want, now I need to work it into how to get there.**

 **Enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 23

EPOV

The box closed with a snap, and just like that, it was over. The most entitled being on the planet was reduced to an object that served a humble purpose: helping my mate to diversify her power. From megalomaniac to part of a spice rack. I had to stop the absurd paths my mind was taking and looked at Marcus for some guidance. I was glad when he took charge, his many, many years of experience taking over.

"That's that. I have to say that right now, I'm a little at a loss. I reached a goal I nurtured for over fifteen hundred years. All I can say is we need to regroup and make sure the true values of the Volturi are restored. Okay, well, yes… First order of business, the council.

"As you all are aware, I'm taking over from Aro, effective immediately. I will keep my brother Caius on the council with me, and not only because we are so used to working together that we don't even need to confer. I think he's proven his worth, and I think he can be considered a royal in his own right. Until her change is complete, my beautiful Didyme will not be on the council. I want to give her all the time in the world to prepare for that task.

"Now, there are two vampires in this room who can claim a seat on the council. I'd like to know if you are going to do that or if you need time to prepare yourselves too. Edward, I can completely understand if you would want to be away from the castle for some time after being hung like a side of beef for four months, always immersed in the vile mind of a dictator to cut off his plans."

I looked at Bella. We conferred inside our mind and decided we would take a few months off before we'd help Didyme on her quest. That's what I told Marcus. The council would be our destiny, but the quest we started on had yet another leg to complete. We would coach Didyme and be her companions on whatever trek she had to complete to become once again Didyme of the Volturi. Bella wanted to go back to Chicago and delve more into my mother's history. I concurred. My time there had been overshadowed by the ancients' visit.

I caught thoughts that were out of sync with the rest of the guards. Two of them were sulking in different ways. The first was Anthenodora. She stood next to a beaming Sulpicia and tried to get her attention.

 _'Why does she ignore me? She fell farther and deeper than I ever could. That stupid twit had me demoted even before Aro went bonkers. Now I know why. The asshole found his human mate, and it didn't even surprise me. I never thought he really mated me—I sure as hell didn't mate with him for real. The power was what lured me in. He just tolerated me next to him because Aro blackmailed him into it. Aro wanted him mated any which way he could, to prevent a disaster like what happened with Marcus. Human found mates are a liability; that's what Aro always told me. He would make me a queen in the vampire world. Well, that worked out like a house on fire with the vampire inside. At least I can try and disrupt things as much as I am able. I should still hold some of my power over the lower guards.'_

The other was surprising and needed immediate action. The anti-tracker, Alistair, was confident he could run with Didyme and keep them hidden. In his mind, because she was still human, she would be meek and understanding. He would kill her if needed, sending Marcus into another tailspin. He wasn't old enough as a vampire to know Marcus before Didyme's murder, and his act in the throne room whenever Aro held audiences had him convinced Marcus couldn't be as great as Aro.

Bella had, of course, listened in, and before Anthenodora could start smoozing the guards, she had her in front of Marcus, telling him what we had overheard. Didyme took a step away from Rosalie and Emmett. Alastair sprang into action, only to collide with Emmett's solid chest and bounce back into my waiting arms. I brought him front and centre too.

"My, my, my. We didn't have to wait long to see the real heart of some of you, did we?" Marcus stated from his throne in the middle of the dais, right next to Caius's throne. Aro's chair had been broken up, and the pieces were thrown into the incinerator. "If you two thought you could get away with undermining this council, you're very mistaken. Our junior members can read minds without ever touching you. Now, tell the truth, or we will wring it out of you like we did with my late brother-in-law. Why were you two trying to act against a newly reinstated government without giving it a chance?"

Both of them didn't answer, not convinced that my mate was as powerful as was stated. I informed her that it might be advantageous to showcase her power once again, this time putting up the infractions of the two we couldn't have had prepared beforehand. Their inner motivations might be handy to decide their fate. Both of them had already, in the former leadership's eyes, committed treason, punishable by death.

Bella tried to use the number-four power but only found blood lust. The power bowl inside the head case had been starved for three weeks, and its reservoir was still empty. The power bowl couldn't function without sustenance. Bella asked the guard if any of them had their food kit on them. Several guards were eager to please the gutsy woman who'd walked into the throne room all alone and brought down their cruel oppressor with minimal help. One look with Marcus's power into the subconscious loyalties around the room showed her that beside the two traitors, every single guard had bonded themselves to Marcus and her. The second line was made up by Didyme and me, with Caius a close third.

Bella took a gallon of base from one guard and a box of additions from a second one. With practiced moves, she mixed up a basic human blood approximation without any of the taste-specific additions. She then blooded all head cases through their filling points, all while explaining to the guard that even though the power bowls would exist for eternity without sustenance, she would take care of her powers. Joking, she added that the powers would be less grumpy while being fed on a regular basis. The thoughts from the guard were synchronous, one loud voice comprised of many. They knew, with that explanation, that she was worthy of Marcus's implied seat on the council.

Marcus's mind was crunching a number of facts. His conclusion was surprising; he wanted to declare the death penalty a less severe punishment than incarceration. His meaning on it was that the perpetrator got off easy when he was destroyed. The perpetrator also could reincarnate right after being destroyed, thus living another life while the victims of his or her crimes had to live with it until they themselves were destroyed or chose death. He was, however, not a fan of stringing people up like what had been done to me. When he thought about it, the head cases flashed through his mind, and I was witness to the birth of a new punishment: the delayed death sentence. He would create his own head storage room, with automatic refills of the reservoirs. The perpetrators would be destroyed but for their heads. Those would be stored in the head room, for as long as their punishment was ordered, before the head, too, would be burned and the soul released to be reincarnated.

He addressed Anthenodora once again. She still refused to acknowledge him. This time, however, she was distracted by the flat screen that showed a new list of infractions against vampire law. The list was full of secretive manipulation behind the scenes, never dirtying her own hands. This perpetrator was the instigator of a lot of acts that the guard implemented. Due to their captive loyalties, they couldn't do anything but obey the orders received. Anthenodora's distraction was understandable because she was looking at the content of her own mind. Her whole master plan was on the screen, bullet points and all. It once again proved that every dictator had brown nosers who were only there to take over his reign.

"Anthenodora, before you, you see the content of your mind that had to do with your lust for power. You are devoid of any power, so repurposing your head for what's inside is ludicrous. I am not, however, keen to simply destroy you. That would be letting you off easy. Felix, I've got a remodeling job for you. We no longer have a need for a human-keeping pen. Those two rooms in the dungeon can be remodeled to our new prison. The pantry of the delayed-death-sentence heads. Because destruction means reincarnation, I'm no longer willing to destroy traitors and other perpetrators of death-penalty crimes right away. It wouldn't be justice. They are destroyed and jumping right back into a new life, while their victims have to live with the aftermath of the crime the rest of their existence. Well, my solution is to give those perpetrators the death penalty but delay the burning of their head for anything between a decade and a millennium. Anthenodora, because your proven crimes were high treason, your delayed death will be a millennium away. Demetri, please dismember and mount her head in a head container as soon as possible. I think Didyme would like to fill the incinerator when the parts are handed to her in the least threatening way."

Before Anthenodora's mind caught up with what exactly was said, she was in pieces. Her mind whirled. She hadn't thought that Marcus was as decisive as he had just shown to be. With her Masen-coven bodyguards, Didyme made her way over to the incinerator carrying a benign piece of the former companion of Caius, her forearm. Emmett had made sure that the twitching parts and the heavy torso were brought to the roaring fire by himself and Felix.

Marcus turned to Alistair when the last part besides her head disappeared into the flames. He opened his mouth to address him, but before any sound could leave his mouth, the doors to the throne room were thrown open and two excited girls ran to Marcus. They looked to be changed at the cusp of adulthood and acted that age too. When Emmett and Felix stepped in front of Marcus to protect him from this sudden attack, they stopped dead in their tracks in perfect synchronicity and rolled their eyes at the wall of muscle. Their thoughts came through, and those, too, were in sync. I heard one thought in a dual voice.

"Our God, why would his oldest friends not be welcome now? Did the muscle growth diminish your brain development?" They spoke as one.

"Ladies," Marcus said, "you'll have to excuse them. The miscreant I just started to address attempted to kidnap Didyme not so long ago. Please be grateful you followed your instinct and stopped as soon as you were challenged."

As if they were mirror images of each other, they each raised a hand over their hearts while the other hand slapped over their mouths, which emitted a synchronized gasp at the message. They were a conundrum. I had never seen two vampires as synchronized as they were. A look with Marcus's power showed a different kind of special bond shining between them. The yellowish color betrayed its origin. The pair were fraternal twins. Their twin bond had changed into something unique. It appeared to me as one soul in two bodies or two souls melted together.

"These two remarkable women are my oldest followers. They found me alone in the wild just after my sire had to leave. They knew I was Royal—how, even they don't know—and pledged their loyalty to me. They told me to find a trusted individual who was from a royal line. They made me change Caius to stand beside me. At my left, we have Loretta, and her twin sister is Paulette—at least for now. They reinvented themselves a few times in the three and a half millennia we've spent together. Here in Volterra, they act as the librarians who also keep the records," Marcus explained to us all.

"Now, let's conclude our business here in the throne room, then follow them to the library, because if they entered this excited, they have found something good.

"Bella, would you please harvest Alistair's memories to determine his motives for his unwarranted attempt to kidnap my Didyme?"

Not two seconds later, the blank screen started scrolling. What came up was fractured and repetitive. It showed very simple thought processes. Bella drew me into his mind to assess it. She couldn't understand how his mind was built. Looking around, I began to grasp what was wrong with his mind. Aro's power made it possible to roam around the basic structure of the mind; besides the memory hall, we also had access to the separate tracks in the mind. Alistair's tracks were special. Half of them were bricked over, inaccessible to him. That and the childlike thought processes had me draw a conclusion that wouldn't have been available when he was changed. This Alistair was changed despite the fact that he was autistic. I pulled Bella to a blank wall, and together we slipped into his subconscious.

We almost fell right back out. His whole subconscious foyer was filled by a gigantic statue of Aro cupping Alistair's cheek. It pulsed with energy, and we could feel that it was rooted deep in his mind. The throbbing energy coming off the statue made us withdraw from his subconscious rather fast. That kind of zealous devotion was irreversible. His memories showed he always worked to gain Aro's approval. His simple world vision had him unable to understand death. He couldn't grasp that Aro was removed from knowing history and demoted to being number four, the memory collector. The guard was quiet, shocked at the content of his mind. He was a genealogy savant. Everything was ordered by blood or venom lines. He had studied the mating registry and pieced together things we never thought about. I noticed that Bella had three tendrils busy with his memories because that info could be important. She was, however, convinced that he couldn't be saved. To be redeemable, his devotion to Aro had to be muted, but she had seen something in his subconscious that had her doubting the possibility of ever erasing it.

"Marcus, it'll take me another five minutes to extract all information, but his devotion to Aro will not go away. It is anchored in his being. He can't help himself; it is just the way his brain is wired. He needs to impress his father figure. Please be lenient to him. No delays. He deserves to be free of the oppression now ruling his mind. I know his infraction can't be overlooked, but his behavior won't change without destroying the fabric of his mind. My recommendation is death without delay."

"Alistair," Marcus addressed the cowering vampire, "do you understand what you did was wrong?"

Alistair looked up at Marcus and shrunk a little more into himself. "My sire has been destroyed. I'm his heir. That means I need to be taking over his place. He didn't like your mate. I was going to rectify her entering this castle against his wishes. He taught me right from wrong. Even though I didn't see him much, he is still the one I follow. I know of no wrong I did."

Marcus sighed. He, too, saw that no rehabilitation would remove the brainwashing Alistair had received. He looked at every member of the council—Didyme, Caius, and me—as he already knew Bella's mind. He received unanimous nods of compliance. As soon as Bella signaled she was ready, Alistair was ripped apart and incinerated without much fanfare. He would be able to go on in a new life.

Paulette and Loretta started bouncing on their toes again and grabbed Marcus's and Didyme's hands, trying to tow them out of the throne room. Marcus held his ground, and Emmett helped Didyme to hold hers.

"Ladies, please, we will follow you, but let us walk for ourselves. We aren't as in tune as you two are with each other," Marcus admonished them, holding back his smile.

He picked up Didyme bridal style and asked the council and its coven to follow him; the guard was dismissed to their own activities. At vampire speed, we strode to the library. Didyme still had to get used to the human reaction her body had to the speed. She hid her face in the crook of Marcus's neck. The twins led us to a back corner of the library. A large vase with silk flowers stood out between the bookcases. Paulette grabbed the only white rose in the composition and pulled it out of the vase—or did she? We all heard the click, and the wall behind the vase opened up to a secret room.

Every wall of the secret room was covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which were filled to capacity with everything from scrolls to CD cases.

"Didyme," Paulette said.

Loretta took over. "This is your library."

Switching back and forth, they continued.

"We gathered everything…"

"…we thought you could use to…"

"…continue the studies you started."

Marcus sighed, looking a little perturbed. "Ladies, switch, please. You're not the Romanians."

The girls giggled and continued their speech in the stereo speak they'd used in the throne room.

"We gathered as much as we could on language studies and diplomacy we could find. On the left are all your old books we collected from your quarters after you were temporarily removed."

Didyme squealed like the teenager she was until recently and stepped around the ornate vase and started to browse the books. "Well, this will keep me busy for quite some time. I see several dictionaries for languages long dead now. It's a shame my father turned out to be such a douche. He would have loved to work out the box with me… Oh, who am I kidding here? He would have taken over and belittled my knowledge."

Everybody but Marcus left her to her own devices and retreated from the library.

' _Edward, Bella, take your jet and go anywhere. You two need alone time to reconnect. We'll call if you're needed, but scram for now,'_ Marcus thought to us, waving us off from our mental flat screen. The crafty bugger had figured out how to invade our mental home.

We retreated from the castle and went to the cave. All of the Masen coven gathered in the library. Carlisle sat vibrating near the door to the laboratory. Esme had taken her place beside him and tried to calm him down enough that he would be able to explain his excitement. After ten minutes of deep breathing, he had the feral part of his nature that had burst forth at his latest discovery under control. That feral part had been riled up even more by the action in the throne room.

"Okay, searching for the specialty additions, I've found an addition that will probably become part of the base. Actually, it's two additions that need to be added in a specific ratio to each other; I hit it by accident. Together they bond with the crystalline structure of our skin and subdue the reflective properties of that structure. At this moment, I don't know yet if it will be a permanent addition to our skin or if it will burn up like any other nutrition we consume."

Emmett sat staring at him with a dumbfounded look in his eyes. His jaw hanging open, he looked as if he had zoned out after Carlisle took the word. It took a few moments, but he shook himself out of it and pierced Carlisle with a suspicious look in his eyes.

"Did you use all those big words to tell us you accidentally found the anti-sparkle addition?"

Carlisle looked down at his shoes. He seemed embarrassed by being called out on his science speak. After a few moments, he gave one firm nod. Bella came to his rescue and complimented him on looking further than his goal of finding the specialty additions for those of our race who had special needs. Her mind was a bit disgruntled that he hadn't started on the humanitarian additions she needed to create her artificial singer blood.

"Okay, everybody. Are you able to find something to do for the next few months? After our semi-forced separation, Edward and I need some time alone. We are going to explore his Chicago home, because apart from needing to be close to each other, we also feel the need to dig into his resurfaced human memories."

Now it was my turn to study the toes of my shoes, lest I should give away my state of arousal. Nothing turned me on as much as my mate taking control; I knew my eyes had to be pitch black.

"Wait a minute!" Rose interjected. "What do you mean, semi-forced?"

Bella let out a pealing laugh. "You caught that, did you? Well, to bring Aro down, we needed a trusted spy inside the castle. Do you know of anyone more suited for that job than Edward? Aro thought he had a powerless wimp hanging in his dungeon, his thoughts not mine. Instead, he harbored the most powerful mind reader ever. A mind reader who purposefully stunned himself into unconsciousness by using number two's power on himself. He was a plant, there to ensure my power access to the inhabitants and an almost unlimited access to every secret in the castle."

She sat back, shrugging a shoulder in a nonchalant move of indifference.

"You're not serious. Why would you do that?" Esme exclaimed.

"Simple: because it was the unexpected. That's why it worked like a charm. It's not something we will do again willingly, because it does eat at the tranquility of our mind. It appears that even though we can be apart without separation pain, the physical contact is still a vital part of our relationship."

Emmett opened his mouth but stopped himself from saying anything. His mind was another matter. A whole slew of racy jokes flew through it. They all ended up rejected. He couldn't, however, stop his eyebrows from wiggling in response to his thoughts. I smiled when a mere raised eyebrow from Rose quelled even that symptom. He'd come a long way.

Jasper spoke up. "If you two go to Chicago, please send the database I made on the computer there to the cave system. When Kate and I come back from being alone for a while, we will start integrating the artificial-blood ordering system with the mating registry and that database.

"We also need to find out if there are still more royals around. If we integrate all three data sources, we should be able to start up a worldwide vampire population register. That'll have to wait, though. Now that we're mated, Kate and I need some privacy soon. We delayed as long as possible."

The whole coven nodded, including Bella and myself.

Jasper snorted and thought, _'Damn, was I that boring?'_

Bella shot him a reassuring smile and said, "Well, that's obvious, and not to be delayed. That's torture. Emmett, Rose, I think you'd be the best chaperones for Didyme, for propriety's sake as well as to give her direction through Rosalie's power. Give her and Marcus space but never leave them alone to prevent them from getting carried away."

They accepted their assignment, and both looked happy to spend more time with Didyme. I took out my phone and informed Marcus of the arrangement and asked him to work his integrating magic on both of them to balance out the hard work they did on their minds.

"May I suggest something?" Esme asked, almost shy. "I'd like to work on the artificial blood sales website. It'll take me some time to work it all out without Jasper here to help me, but I would like to feel that I'm contributing to the greater picture you've all been working on, too. I'll just design it. I'll leave the security and all that to Jasper and Marcus. I just want to do something. I feel useless hanging around here."

"Oh, Esme, I'm so sorry. I've been so preoccupied that I didn't see that," Bella exclaimed. "Of course, the design job is yours. I wouldn't know anyone better suited!"

With that said, everybody started to go about their business, either packing bags to have some reserve clothing or shooting back into the laboratory to once again further science in the vampire way. Jasper gave his laptop to Esme and showed her all the programs she could need to build a website as well as a few tutorials for those programs—the same ones he used to learn them. He opened his browser and favorited a few websites that held manuals for the programs. At vampire speed, he made sure that everything Esme could need was set up, because Kate stood next to the exit, waiting for him. Bella and I were the last to leave. The fact that we were reluctant to have any space between us hindered efficient packing. There was also the fact that we had no schedule to keep because we could file our flight plan at any moment and the private airport guaranteed a departure within thirty minutes from filing. After about three hours, we were in the air and on our way to my roots.

Once in the air with the plane on auto-pilot, I allowed my mind to go over the four months I'd hung out in the castle. The change that occurred in those months was remarkable. It proved to me that the forced loyalty hadn't taken root in the core of the guard. They couldn't even think freely but still retained the morals Marcus had worked hard to set in the vampire world. The new feeding would make our kind less conspicuous, I hoped to the point that we'd be forgotten by humankind. Carlisle's enthusiasm was making us even less noticeable. To walk through the sun without causing a riot on the boulevards of Saint Tropez would open up the pieces of life, until now, forbidden. The fact that we didn't have to hide in the shadows any longer was a very freeing feeling.

I looked over to Bella, who was immersed in a thick manual of the plane. She wanted to be able to fly it too. She had come so far from the timid girl I'd met a year and a half ago; not only had she become a vampire but a leader of our kind. Her determination to succeed was only dimmed by her compassion. I knew she would be landing the plane flawlessly upon arrival in Chicago. Once she started learning, she wouldn't stop until she conquered the topic. Her determination taught me to start learning again. I'd existed for far too long in an easy compliance with the status quo.

The shift from doing the same mind-numbing thing over and over to blend in with a world we didn't belong in anymore, to thriving and learning to exist in our natural habitat, was life affirming. Marcus taught us to be one person, to blend human and vampire traits and characteristics into a coherent picture. Without the endless struggle inside, I knew I had grown into my own.

The future looked somewhat sunny. No more dictator with crazy ideas of propriety over individuals. The only mysteries left were the crazy mumblings of the ancients. To rediscover the origins of our kind.

* * *

 **Thank you for taking this journey with me. Please let me know what you thought. Please review.**

 **My final recommendations are two of my absolute favorites:**

 **Reboot by Diana Law. It's near the end of Breaking Dawn and the Volturi Confrontation does NOT end peacefully. They attack and Bella and Edward both die. So how come it's Bella's first day in Forks, all over again? Ffn 6222640**

 **Elemental by TalluhlahBelle. When the Swans return to their birthplace, Bella learns she is no ordinary teenager, and Forks is no ordinary town. Can she fulfill her destiny with the powerful Edward Cullen, or will the dark forces that threaten their families destroy them all. Ffn 5241793**

 **Enjoy reading, see you next time**

 **Pien**


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